Just when we all thought we could turn from Illinois to whether Lizard People is going to cost Al Franken his senate seat, the Rod Blagojevich scandal took a turn for the bizarre last week. The comically-corrupt governor of Illinois appointed ethically clean but judgmentally challenged Roland Burris to Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat. For me Blago (“fuck all of you!”) and Burris (“look at me! look at me! look at me!”) are stock characters in this drama, but there is one supporting player who deserves a second look.
Bobby Rush, apparently unable to resist the temptation to grandstand, has insinuated himself into this mess, arguing that opposing the actions of the blatantly-corrupt Blago was equivalent to “lynching” Burris. He then went on to compare the US Senate to George Wallace and Bull Connor.
This country has an ugly history with regards to race, and there are many abhorrent reasons why “underrepresented minorities” remain underrepresented, but demagogues like Bobby Rush certainly aren’t helping now, if they ever helped before. Rush wouldn’t be in this position if the voters in his district hadn’t put him there, so maybe we should be looking at the system that encourages this kind of behavior. Rush’s district is based in the south side of Chicago and is 65% African-American. This demographic composition rewards Rush for riling up his base, even when his allegations are patently ridiculous.
Majority-minority districts have played an important role in increasing minority representation in the House, but acts like this make me wonder what other unintended consequences they have had. In the 110th Congress, the CBC had 39 voting members of the House out of 435, a respectable showing. In the Senate, however, the CBC had one voting member out of 100. It seems clear that majority-minority districts have done their job of increasing minority representation in the House, but blacks specifically are still severely underrepresented at the level of statewide office. It would be tempting to blame this state of events on racism, as there are no majority-black states. Barack Obama’s election contradicts this, as he won large victories in states with demographics as varied as Hawaii to New Hampshire to North Carolina.
Another possible cause is that the farm system for producing minority candidates is flawed in some way. Districting plays a large role in which candidates are able to run for statewide office; the House is one of the largest producers of Senatorial candidates. Is it possible that our current system of creating and promoting politicians creates too many Bobby Rushes and too few Barack Obamas? Can a candidate run and win in IL-01 without practicing the kind of racial politics Rush is adept at? Barack Obama couldn’t.
Playing to racial divisions may be beneficial to candidates at the local level, but it undermines their ability to seek higher elected offices. I’m about as loyal a Democratic voter as there is, and I’d be really hard pressed to vote for Rush after some of his pronouncements this week, let alone this decade. Here, as in many other areas, the problem isn’t Rush, it’s the system that rewards him for being counterproductive.