Latinos, Anglos, voters, candidates, and voting rights.

• Author: Nagler, Jonathan
• Position: California - Symposium: The Law of Democracy

In this paper we contrast the demographics, political preferences, and voting behavior of Latinos and Anglos. In doing so, we focus particularly on California because of the large quantity of economic, demographic, and political data concerning Latinos that are available for that state. Also, restricting ourselves to Latinos in California avoids the "problem" of cross-state diversity. We demonstrate that there is remarkable diversity among Latinos within California. Were we to add the Hispanic populations of other states to our analysis, particularly Cubans in Florida and Puerto Ricans in New York, we would magnify this diversity considerably. The purpose of our research is to provide suitable factual material for determining whether or not Latinos can constitute a "community of interest." (1) We do not offer a new theory of "community of interest" here. But we think that a community of interest must be based more on shared preferences than on political outcomes (where "political outcomes" can be policy choices or candidates running for office).

In this paper we examine demographic diversity, diversity of opinion on issues (expressed both as votes on ballot propositions and responses to survey questions), and diversity in choices of candidates. We also examine the willingness of non-Latino voters to vote for Latino candidates. We show that California's Latino population is very diverse--ethnically, socially, and economically. We also demonstrate that this ethnic, social, and economic diversity has a political parallel: the Latino electorate is not monolithic, and the policies Latinos support are not necessarily policies that non-Latino groups unite to oppose. This leads to the conclusion that the concept of "community of interest is problematic with regard to Latinos in California--a conclusion that has implications for the application of California's voting rights precedents, as recently seen in Cano v. Davis. (2)

1. DEMOGRAPHIC AND ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN CALIFORNIA

   While voting rights disputes in the United States are often associated with the South, where the world was literally looked at as "Black and White," California cannot be thought of in terms of "Black and White," "Latino and White," or "White and non-White." (3) In fact, California cannot even be thought of in terms of "Anglo, Hispanic, Asian, and Black" because there is too much diversity within each of these groups. For example, the term "Hispanic" can refer to people of completely different national origins, from different continents, and of different generations (e.g., both first-generation immigrants and second and later generations of Americans may be referred to as "Hispanic"). Similarly, in California the term "Asian" can refer to people of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, or Cambodian origins, among others, with widely varying socioeconomic status. Thus, while we argue that it is a conceptual mistake to think of Californians primarily in racial and ethnic terms, we understand that such analyses are frequently offered in voting fights cases. Despite what is asserted in voting rights cases, the evidence does not support such a simpleminded approach to a state in which current political life is animated by a complex web of coalition building among diverse groups, and in which alliances are based on interests that regularly transcend race and ethnicity. (4)

   The diversity of the non-White population of California greatly complicates any analysis of racial and ethnic politics in the state. Given the diversity of California, which we document in this Article, the assumption that political competition, representation, or policy making results from a conflict between Whites and non-Whites is incorrect. It is similarly incorrect to view politics in California as the result of a Latino versus non-Latino conflict, an Asian versus non-Asian conflict, or a Black versus non-Black conflict.

   An analysis of data from the 2000 Census shows that California is a multiethnic state. (5) In Table 1 we document, with data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the change in the racial composition of California's non-Hispanic population from 1990 to 2000. In 2000, Whites numbered 15,816,790, or 69% of California's total non-Hispanic population of 22,905,092; however, the White non-Hispanic population in California fell by 7% between 1990 and 2000. The increase in California's non-Hispanic population was produced by increases in the Black non-Hispanic population (increasing 4% to 2,181,926 persons), and by increases in the Asian non-Hispanic population (increasing 38% to 3,752,596) California's non-Hispanic population is becoming more Asian. (6)

   Table 2 provides a detailed look at the national origin composition of the Hispanic population in California. Using the detailed information on Hispanic origin available from the 2000 Census, we give the number of residents in most major Hispanic national origin groups. Beginning with our profile of the California Hispanic population, we see that Mexicans constitute a large share (77%) of the total Hispanic population in California. Other national origin categories that have significant shares of the Hispanic population statewide are "other" Hispanics (14.2%), Salvadorans (2.5%), Guatemalans (1.3%), and Puerto Ricans (1.3%). Thus, before proceeding further, we note that the ethnic heterogeneity of Hispanics is substantial, especially for the population of a single state.

   We now turn to interracial marriage and persons claiming multracial identities. The 2000 U.S. Census questionnaires allowed respondents to indicate more than one identification with more than one race. (10) In California in 2000, the total number of persons of more than one race was 1,607,646, (11) and the figure for Los Angeles County was 469,781. (12) As we documented in Table 1, in California 903,115 non-Hispanic persons indicated identification with more than one racial group, and 222,661 Los Angeles County non-Hispanic residents did the same.

   Interracial relationships as documented by the U.S. Census Bureau are no longer rare in the United States. March 2000 Census data indicate that the number of interracial marriages nationwide has increased to just over three million. (13) Of the estimated three million interracial marriages reported in 2000, 50.8% of them involved marriages between someone who was White and someone who was Hispanic. The Census Bureau reports that 1.7 million interracial households reported having children of their own under the age of eighteen. (15) A recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California shows that the multiracial/multiethnic birth rate had increased to over 14% of all births statewide in 1997. (16) This is greater than the proportion of births where both parents were Asian Oust under 10%), and the proportion of births where both parents were Black (slightly more than 5%). (17) Last, the study found that the majority of all the multiracial/multiethnic births in 1997 were children with one Hispanic and one White parent (53%), while almost 75% of all the multiracial/multiethnic births in 1997 involved couples with one White non-Hispanic parent and another parent that was Hispanic, Asian or Black. (18) Thus, we have additional evidence that looking at the world in fixed categories of "Latino" and "non-Latino"--or "White," "Asian," "Latino," and "Black"--is inconsistent with reality.

   Not only is there variation among Hispanics in ethnicity and national origin, but there is also variation on another demographic characteristic related to politics: income. Income is an important predictor of political preferences. And many political policy decisions have differential impacts on persons of different income levels. Table 3 presents data regarding the income distributions across the racial and ethnic groups in California: Whites, Hispanics, Asians, and Blacks. (19) While the mean income of Hispanic families is considerably below the mean income of White families (over one-third of White families had incomes over $75,000; only 14% of Hispanic families had incomes over $75,000), there is diversity of income within the set of Hispanic families. As we indicate later, we believe that Hispanic families with incomes over $50,000 are likely to have more in common politically with Anglo families earning more than $50,000 than they do with Hispanic families earning less than $15,000.

2. LATINOS HAVE DIVERSE POLITICAL VIEWS

   In the previous section we showed that the population of California is racially and ethnically diverse. In this section we examine political diversity of the Latino community. It is convenient for observers of California politics to discuss Latino voters as if they constitute a monolithic voting bloc in California. But this view is inaccurate. Latinos are not a monolithic voting bloc, as has been widely recognized in the political science literature for some time. (21) As we will show in this section, survey dam collected from California Latinos provide additional strong support for our argument that Latinos are a diverse group. There is also substantial heterogeneity within the national Latino electorate regarding political preferences. (22) In other words, Latino voters do not agree about many of the important issues of the day; and, in light of such disagreement, it makes little sense to talk about Latino voters as an overwhelming bloc in contemporary elections. The academic literature on Hispanic political preferences and voting behavior at the national level also concludes that Hispanics are a diverse, rather than a monolithic community; and that diversity extends across national origin groups, immigration status, cultural roots, socioeconomic status, and political preferences and opinions. (23)

   We start by examining the level of Latino cohesion in California. Complicating the analysis of cohesion, though, is the lack of a precise definition of the concept of cohesion. To illustrate our use of the term...