Valuing the Vote: The Redistribution of Voting Rights and State Funds Following the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Abstract

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) has been called one of the most effective pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history, having generated dramatic increases in black voter registration across the South. We show that the expansion of black voting rights in some southern states brought about by one requirement of the VRA -the elimination of literacy tests at voter registration -was accompanied by a shift in the distribution of state aid toward localities with higher proportions of black residents, a finding that is consistent with models of distributive politics. Our estimates imply an elasticity of state transfers to counties with respect to turnout in presidential elections -the closest available measure of enfranchisement -of roughly one.

Do Black Politicians Matter?

“…This analysis shows that politician race affects outcomes over and above electoral preferences. Moreover, this work is consistent with the literature which finds large public finance effects for black enfranchisement (Cascio and Washington, 2014), suggesting that political representation can strengthen the electoral effects of enfranchisement. Second, this work leverages the historical record to determine, ex ante, the specific areas of policy agreement among black officeholders and allows me to analyze whether specific policy goals were achieved, consistent with models of citizen candidates (Alesina, 1998;Osborne and Slivinski, 1996;Besley and Coate, 1997).…”

“…Second, white politicians would have to sub optimally respond to the policy preferences of the black electorate, where their policy positions should be more likely to conform to black electoral strength. The existing evidence from the enfranchisement of blacks in the 1960s suggests that white politicians did respond to black electoral strength (Cascio and Washington, 2014). Adding any dynamic dimension to such models would therefore require implausible discounting by politicians for enfranchisement to have no effect.…”

“…For example, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 led to the creation of super-majority black congressional districts to ensure racial minority representation in Congress. The focus of previous literature has been the effect of majority-minority districts, the electorate, or the racial composition of officeholders as opposed to the demographics of politicians themselves (Washington, 2012;Cascio and Washington, 2014;Shotts, 2003;Friedman and Holden, 2008;Beach and Jones, 2017).…”

Voting Technology, Political Responsiveness, and Infant Health: Evidence From Brazil

“…This paper communicates with three different strands of economic literature. First, it is most closely related to the within-country analysis of enfranchisement's effects, such as Cascio and Washington (2014), Husted andKenny (1997), andNaidu (2012). These papers focus on legally mandated franchise extension to racial minorities in the United States, while I focus on a de facto enfranchisement episode in a developing context.…”

Race, Representation, and the Voting Rights Act

“…Upon reflection, President Johnson remarked that the VRA was his greatest achievement from an era that produced “one of the most glittering records of legislative accomplishment in history.” The VRA earns a place on David Mayhew's list of “significant” legislation and has also been described as “the most powerful weapon in the civil rights arsenal” (Gerken , 709), which “had fundamental effects on American politics and society” (Rodriguez and Weingast , 1428). As Cox and Miles (, 1) elaborate, “the Voting Rights Act has dramatically reshaped the political landscape of the United States … it has helped substantially expand political opportunities for minority voters and has contributed to the radical realignment of Southern politics.” And in even more lucid terms, Issacharoff (, 95) writes that the VRA “was pivotal in bringing black Americans to the broad currents of political life—a transformation that shook the foundations of Jim Crow, triggered the realignment of partisan politics, and set the foundations for the election of an African American president.” A voluminous empirical literature attributes the VRA with increased rates of Black voter turnout (Filer, Kenney, and Morton ); successful Black candidates elected to municipal office (Sass and Mehay ), state legislatures (Grofman and Handley ), and Congress (Handley, Grofman, and Arden ); and public expenditures in Black communities (Cascio and Washington ; Husted and Kenny ; Keech ).…”