Southern Black Democrats Lose Clout in Republican South

[Frodo]

I don't know why I didn't post this last week, but I am posting it now:

Report: Southern black Democrats lose clout with rise of GOP-controlled state legislatures

By Associated Press, Published: November 18

ATLANTA — Black lawmakers have lost clout in Southern state capitols as their overwhelming allegiance to the Democratic Party has left them without power in increasingly GOP-controlled state legislatures.

The nonpartisan Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies says in a report issued Friday that despite Barack Obama’s election as president, black voters and elected officials in the South have less influence now than at any time since the civil rights era.
 
“Since conservative whites control all the power in the region, they are enacting legislation both neglectful of the needs of African Americans and other communities of color ...” writes senior research associate David Bositis in a paper titled “Resegregation in Southern Politics?” The Washington-based think tank conducts research and policy analysis, particularly on issues that affect blacks and people of color.

Bositis points out state legislatures are increasingly divided along racial lines — making Republican synonymous with whites and Democrat and black interchangeable. According to the report, a majority of Democrats in both chambers in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi are black. In half of the southern state legislative chambers, blacks are a majority or near-majority of Democratic members.

“This begs the question, ‘what is the purpose of having a legislative black caucus when the majority of members in your legislative body are black?’” the report says.