Staggered Terms and Black Representation

Abstract

Courts, the Justice Department, and civil rights groups have charged that staggered terms dilute minority political influence. This assertion is examined in the dual contexts of state senates and city councils. Neither bivariate nor multivariate analyses find use of overlapping terms to be associated with less representation of blacks in senates or southern municipalities. The percent black in the polity translates into black representation at about the same rate in staggered and nonstaggered systems. That staggered terms have been incorporated into the laundry list of discriminatory elements in the absence of comprehensive data raises troubling questions about the policy development process.