Replication Data for: Race, Representation, and the Voting Rights Act

Despite wide scholarly interest in the Voting Rights Act, surprisingly little is known about how its specific provisions affected Black political representation. In this paper, we draw on theories of electoral accountability to evaluate the effect of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the preclearance provision, on the representation of Black interests in the 86th to 105th Congresses. We find that members of Congress who represented jurisdictions subject to the preclearance requirement were substantially more supportive of civil rights-related legislation than legislators who did not represent covered jurisdictions. Moreover, we report that the effects were stronger in more competitive districts, and when Black voters comprised larger portions of the electorate. This result is robust to a wide range of model specifications and empirical strategies, and persists over the entire time period under study. Our findings have especially important implications given the Supreme Court's recent decision in Shelby v. Holder.

尽管学界对《选举权法案》（Voting Rights Act）已有广泛研究兴趣，但令人惊讶的是，目前对其具体条款如何影响非裔美国人的政治代表权却所知甚少。本文依托选举问责理论，评估《选举权法案》第5条——即前置审查条款（preclearance provision）——对第86届至第105届美国国会中非裔利益代表状况的影响。研究结果显示，相较于未代表受管辖选区的议员，代表受前置审查要求约束的选区的国会议员，对民权相关立法的支持度显著更高。此外，本文还发现，在竞争更为激烈的选区，以及非裔选民占选民总人数比例更高的选区，该法案的影响效果更为显著。该研究结论在多种模型设定与实证策略下均保持稳健，且在本文研究的全部时间段内均成立。结合美国最高法院近期在Shelby v. Holder案中的判决，本文的研究发现具有尤为重要的政策启示价值。