In the recent political elections the democrats did not regain the majority of the either house of Congress. However, there were still some important victories that gave them reason to celebrate. In some elections democratic candidates faced more than just a republican opponent. One of these candidates was Congresswomen Cynthia McKinney, a black representative from the eleventh district in Georgia. She had previously been a two time winner in the eleventh district (1992 and 1994), but after a ruling by the supreme court in 1995 the district was broken up and she was forced to run in the newly designed fourth district.After the 1990 census fifteen newly created districts had a black majority in the United States: McKinneys district was one of them. But after the 1992 elections a debate arouse if these districts were unconstitutional based on the fact that they were created for racial purposes, and were contrary to equal protection under the law. A specific case in 1995, Miler v. Johnson, declared that this racial gerrymandering was unconstitutional, which forced McKinney into a new district which happened to be a predominately white majority. However, with this in mind, Congresswomen McKinney was still victorious in the November elections. Her victory, like the decisions of the court, raised many questions about future elections and the proper way to go about districting the states. By moving into the fourth district McKinneys seat seemed to be very vulnerable. A vast majority of her votes from the last two elections were no gone, and no it seemed as if the question of her race would hurt rather than harm her. But she still won anyway; so how does one explain this? One argument that has been raised it that race is no longer a determining factor in ones choice for his/her representative. It has been said that voters are more and more crossing racial lines during elections which will have a positive effect for minority candid...
