jumped from 26 to 52. The case of the Georgian district could only be the beginning. At the outset of the decision, things looked bleak for McKinney, and for minorites as a whole. The 1996 election would appear to be difficult one since it would be inevitable that McKinney would lose most of her electoral support when she finds herself in a new district. The frusteration of McKinney herself was seen in her comments in the fall issue of Congressional Quarterly. It is a setback for democracy. It is a sham that we are even here arguing whether or not we have gone overboard on perfecting democracy(p.24). After the Supreme Court decision the districts were thrown back to a three judge panel, which decided by a 2-1 vote that the districts had effectively disinfrancised white, and should be dismantled. The panel went on to form just one black majority district based around Atlanta whose representive is John Lewis. From this McKinneys new home was the fourth district, but it was still undecided how friendly this new home would be.The fourth district had half as many blacks; it went from a 64% black population to a 30% population. This was just one of the difficulties that McKinney did overcome in her victory in the fourth congressional district of Georgia, which is located in the east and northeast suburbs of Atlanta. She won with 58% of the vote, in which she carried 90% of the black vote and 31% of the white vote- much more than she did in her 1994 election.The 1996 elections produced 37 victories for black candidates (36 democrats and 1 republican), and McKinney was just one of seven blacks who won with a black population of less than 40%. As mentioned earlier there is a question for the reason behind this. One answer is that voters are crossing racial lines, and ideology is taking precedence. The other idea is that the power of imcubency is still the dominant factor in elections. Cynthia McKinney did overcome the defeat of the Su...
