Republican quota fiasco.

• Author: Hood, John

"They had to give your job to a minority," says the sneering off-screen narrator, as a pair of white hands crumples a job notice and a synthesizer plays a single, ominous musical note. This TV ad, from Sen. Jesse Helm's successful 1990 re-election bid in North Carolina, is one of the most enduring political images of recent years. Rebroadcast constantly throughout the nation, the ad served as a wake-up call about popular resentment of racial quotas.

For liberals and Democrats, it typified--together with the Willie Horton ad of 1988--the inherent racism of modern politics. For conservatives and Republicans, the ad was thrilling: It showed someone was brave enough to bash reverse discrimination directly, and it worked.

Less than three years later, another North Carolina quota controversy made national headlines. This time, the issue was an electoral redistricting plan. Two gerrymandered majority-black districts were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the majority, proclaimed that "racial classifications of any sort pose the risk of lasting harm to our society. They reinforce the belief, held by too many for too much of our history, that individuals should be judged by the color of their skin."

The difference between the 1990 Helms ad and the 1993 gerrymandering decision is that in the latter case Republicans in North Carolina and the Bush Justice Department had favored quotas. In a Faustian bargain replicated in states across the country, North Carolina Republicans allied with leaders of the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union to push for as many safe black districts as possible. The strategy was supposed to make surrounding majority-white districts more competitive for the GOP.

While The Wall Street Journal and other national organs with reliable conservative credentials have heaped well-deserved scorn on ridiculous gerrymanders in North Carolina and othe states, they have largely ignored the culpability of Republicans. As Tom De Witt, a former political aide in the Helms organization, put it, "the Republican Party cynically granted the legitimacy" of racial gerrymandering and thus helped set the stage for the outrageous districts to follow.

Until the Supreme Court decision threw a monkey wrench into the works, North Carolina Democrats couldn't believe their good fortune. After the 1990 census, it became obvious that population growth would add a seat to the state's 11-seat delegation. Democrats...