Race and redistricting in the 1990s /

The bulk of this collection consists of case studies of redistricting processes during the 1990s in seven states. These states (five in the South, plus Alaska and California) are covered by the Voting Rights Act's original preclearance requirement that mandates federal oversight of district line-drawing, focusing on its potential discriminatory effect on racial and ethnic minority groups. While comprehensive, these seven chapters are descriptive in nature; the collection lacks an analytical chapter following the case studies that would highlight the trends observed in this area of public policy. These case studies are bracketed by chapters examining theoretical and legal aspects of race-conscious districting and by later chapters examining procedures for drawing district lines employed in New Jersey and New York City. The essays by political scientists and others directly involved in redistricting processes vary in their quality and in their achievement of the goal of shedding light on the "practical politics" of redistricting. The best chapter applies ambition theory to the real world of newly drawn majority-minority districts, nicely mixing electoral data and interviews. Others, however, overwhelm the reader with tables of data that are not fully analyzed. While flawed, the collection serves as a good resource on a crucial topic in contemporary American politics. Upper-division undergraduates and above. J. Barth; Hendrix College