Elections in the United States and Latinos in U.S. Elections

1. Elections in the United States and Latinos in U.S. Elections Latinos and the 2008 Elections Lecture 2 October 2, 2008

2. Questions from Last Time • How has Latino influence been felt in recent national elections? • What are the barriers to a greater Latino voice?

3. Context of Contemporary (Latino) Electoral Politics • Declining turnout, worldwide and in the United States • U.S. among the lowest • “Thank goodness for Switzerland” • Explanations for low U.S. turnout • Registration requirements (no electoral list) • Voting on a non-holiday Tuesday • Absence of ideological alternatives • Complexity of U.S. elections (see the 2008 California ballot)

4. Turnout 1960s – 1990s, Selected Countries

5. Turnout in U.S. Presidential Elections, 1960-2004

6. What States Have Seen the Steepest Declines? • Outside the South • Those with weakening party structures • Those with declining inter-party competition • Registration rules play a less important role than party structure and party competition

7. Until 1975, These Patterns Applied only Tangentially to Latinos What Changed in 1975? The Voting Rights Act

8. Models of Latino Electoral Participation (pre-1975) • Machines • Machine—An organized group of people whose members are under the control of one or more leaders • Manipulation • Multi-generational extension of the machine • Exclusion • Use of intimidation or violence to exclude Latinos from participation

9. Machines • Mexican American machines (Southwest) • South Texas and New Mexico (1890s-1940s) • Elected Mexican American and Anglo officeholders • “Voted” immigrants • Shaped national politics • European-dominated ethnic machines (Northeast/Midwest) • New York (1920s-1960s) • Intermittently included and excluded Puerto Ricans • Used literacy tests to exclude

10. Manipulation • Machines created opportunities, but denied political education • Had longer duration in Mexican American and Puerto Rican communities than among white ethnics • Higher positions (in machine and elective office) generally went to Anglos • So, Latinos voted at high rates prior to 1975, but didn’t vote freely

11. Exclusion • The model we often apply to “minority” voting, but not representative of the modal Latino experience • Violence/intimidation appeared in areas of new Latino residence where there were also new Anglo populations • Example-Duval County, Texas

12. The Voting Rights Act: the Foundation of Latino Politics • Voting Rights Act (VRA) • 1965—Applied national standards for African American registration and voting in several southern states • Revolutionary in intent and impact • Passed only after acts of extreme (and nationally televised) violence against Blacks seeking to register to vote

13. VRA Extension to Latinos (1975) • Little debate about Mexican American / Latino needs • What discussion there was asserted similarities to Blacks • No discussion of whether Mexican American experiences applied to other Latinos • 1975 Extension • Protections extended to Blacks in 1965 extended to “language minorities” • Bilingual voting materials one new provision

14. Consequences of VRA Extension to Latinos • Legal • Federal monitoring of Latino registration and voting • Legal/structural linkage Latino political rights • Political • Expansion in the number of Latino officeholders • But new officeholders haven’t kept up with population growth

15. Good News and Bad News for Latino Empowerment You can spin the story however you want

16. Latino Participation, 1976- 2000

17. Latino Adult Voters, Adult Citizen Non-Voters, and Adult Non-U.S. Citizens, 1976-2004 Source: Current Population Survey

18. Latino Share of the Total Vote, 1976-2000

19. Latino Officeholding, 1973-2007 on the rise

20. But, Latinos Make up Small Share of the 600,000 Elected Officeholders Nationwide And are underrepresented both as a share of the population and a share of the citizen population in every state

21. So, • National Latino politics has emerged in an era of declining participation among all electorates • Parties/campaign institutions not investing in national mobilization • Recurring “battleground” states a different story • Many big states have seen low/no mobilization for two decades • The VRA ensures some targeted protections • These don’t make up for ground wars to win Latino votes • VRA will be subject to recurring court challenges on Constitutional grounds

22. Questions for Week 2 Readings • How is technology changing the ways that national campaigns are conducted? • Will these new strategies create opportunities or new barriers for Latino and other minority voters? [This is a question that you need to keep in mind for your analytical essay assignment.]