Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Congressional Black Caucus Districts…

• In Event: Congress and the Presidency

Abstract

U.S. House districts represented by members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) have changed a great deal in recent years. Fifty-four U.S. House districts are represented by members of the CBC, which also includes two Senators. Today, the median percentage of Voting Age Population (VAP) who are African American in these districts is only 35%. Only nine of these districts meet the 50% population threshold established by Thornburg v Gingles (1986), and only one meets the earlier “65% rule.” On the other hand, four such districts have a VAP of less than 10% African American. A second district meeting the 65% rule—one of only two in the nation—is represented by a non-CBC member. In addition, there are four African American, Republican House members and one such U.S. Senator, none of whom are members of the CBC.
This paper features extensive, qualitative visualizations of the House districts represented by CBC members in 2018 and 2022 using R packages including plotly, ggplot, and gganimate. These packages allow for a rich visualization of these districts and their changing demographics.

Author

• Michael Smith, Emporia State University