The need for a comprehensive survey of black state legislative influence is especially dire given recent, "new federalism" initiatives that are devolving power from Washington to the respective state governments. These changes cut both ways, portending both risks and opportunities for black citizens and the legislators who represent them. Moreover, these potential risks and opportunities are magnified by the increasing degree of partisan competition within states of late, driven as it were by the improving electoral fortunes of the Republican Party, especially in the South.

The risks. Devolution may imperil black constituencies insofar as national programs are eliminated, scaled back, or targeted for other communities. For example, the termination of national oversight of poverty entitlement programs, and the wider latitude given to states to decide environmental policies, has had a tremendous and often negative impact on black communities. The ability of black state legislative caucuses to counteract these potentially damaging changes remains as yet uncertain. Black constituents simply cannot rely as they did for decades on national government protection and Democratic control of the executive or legislative branches. 

Partisan developments at the state level also entail new challenges. Of the nine states covered entirely by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, five are ruled by Republican governors, three are under split-control in the state legislatures, and two are controlled by Republican majorities. Of the seven other states where Section 5 only applies to certain parts of the state, three are ruled by Republican governors, two are under split control in the state legislatures, and two are controlled by Republican majorities. Silence by, or dissension within, black state legislative caucuses in the coming decades will do little to prevent post-devolution damage to black constituencies. Collective opposition might temper the damage, but collective ineptness will certainly exacerbate the situation. 

The opportunities. Lest the picture seem too stark, devolution does not preclude black political progress; in fact, devolution may trigger a rejuvenation of black politics. State-level politics, in ways distinctly different from national politics, provide opportunities for local elements to assert greater control of legislation by manipulating institutions that both aggregate preferences and adjudicate between competing claims about the state's collective will. And thus black citizens and politicians that dedicate their resources to local and state politics will have much greater input and influence on state parties, elites, and government officials when they do.

Consequently, and counter-intuitively, as state legislatures become more two-party competitive, the ability of black legislative caucuses to exercise decisive, coalition-building power may actually increase because black legislators are more likely to serve as the swing voting bloc. This is especially true when the qualitative value of black votes - as evidenced by strongly cohesive caucuses, particularly on contentious issues - exceeds that of other potential blocs of potential allies. Black influence also grows as black legislators assume heretofore unprecedented committee and party positions. Non-decisions are decisions, and the blocking and vetoing power of cohesive black caucuses will remain a stock weapon in the black state legislative political arsenal.

Risks and opportunities are two sides of the same coin, of course. Readers will note our suggestion that black state legislative cohesiveness will be critical for black constituencies in the post-devolution era. That said, in a recent paper we examined voting cohesion within and between the Maryland and North Carolina legislative black caucuses on the most contentious votes during the legislative session. Although both legislatures are bicameral, feature similar district sizes, and use some form of multiple-member districting, the nesting of districts in Maryland creates artifactual inter-chamber homogeneity: the entire MDLBC is elected from extremely majority-minority districts from just two counties, whereas NCBLC members are elected by a more heterogeneous set of constituents, in terms of both geography and racial composition. Such differences would suggest that the NCBLC faced a greater challenge in unifying black state legislators, particularly if white legislators representing districts with significant minority populations voiced opposition to the caucus position. We did not find this to be the case, however. For Maryland, we found the MDBLC to be more internally cohesive than either the group of white legislators representing districts with significant minority constituencies, or even the subgroup of white Democrats, on contentious votes. In North Carolina, we found that caucus members rarely defected from the majority caucus position. Compared to the groups of members representing significant black populations and its Democratic subgroup, the NCBLC exhibited significantly higher levels of internal cohesion. 

Given our findings, the implications of black state legislators exhibiting a greater degree of cohesiveness than their white counterparts who represent a significant percentage of minorities are clear. If black state legislators vote consistently and collectively despite structural, political, electoral, geographic, and racial differences between them, this behavior could be fairly characterized as representation "beyond parochialism." 

This notion that black interests transcend geographic and political boundaries is fundamental to a theory that substantive benefits are derived from collective action by black elected officials. Given the level of constituency heterogeneity among members of the North Carolina legislative black caucus, it was unlikely that a natural-flowing level of cohesion could deliver the type of substantive benefits desired by black North Carolinians. Cohesion could be partly circumstantial; but more often than not, collective action problems are resolved when leaders illustrate the "participatory and expressive" benefits of concerted action. In states where black constituents are underrepresented,¹ the benefits of collective action perhaps outweigh the initial start-up costs. For black state constituents, policy benefits are awarded to those legislative groups who minimize start-up costs associated with collective action, maximize the outgrowth of that action, and finally, minimize the cost of socializing new members to pursue the collective good. Any articulation that group solidarity matters in a policy dispute is an attempt to control costs!

More importantly, whether motivated by race or necessity, caucus cohesion affects the coalition building process. Cohesiveness facilitates the effective and strategic allocation of resources dedicated towards building biracial coalitions. Such unification of purpose maximizes the likelihood of passing Democratic policies while lowering the premium needed for converting potential coalition partners into a black caucus-supported (or led) coalition. In a three-group coalition/bargaining game, incentive structures are created that encourage two of the groups to conspire against the third. Black caucuses must take center stage (armed with a degree of cohesiveness and numerical importance) to create incentives for potential coalition partners to participate early in the bargaining process. 

In short, we believe that cohesion speaks directly to the descriptive-substantive tradeoff issue that lies at the heart of the current debates about racial representation. Our paper is just one of what we hope are many future examinations of legislative black caucuses and the overall impact black state representatives will have during the new, post-devolution era of racialized state politics. 

To summarize, for black interests to prevail in this new era of government relations, black state caucuses must benefit from the "reputational capital" coalition advocates and potential partners bring to the coalition building process. Such capital will enable caucus members to strategically confront the issues that will continue to define state politics (and black politics) as we begin the new century - measures aimed at ameliorating social ills, ensuring criminal and sentencing fairness, and achieving economic disparity. Black state legislators, emboldened by group identity, reputation for collective action, and solidarity, will be confronted with new challenges and new possibilities. 

Any full and complete inquiry into the issue of racial representation in the coming century must incorporate a discussion on how state black elected officials respond to the risks and opportunities that await them and the constituencies they represent. Quite simply, we ignore the importance of black state legislators to racial politics and representation in the post-devolution period of American politics at our peril.

As of the 1998 elections, there are 35 black legislators in the 188-seat Maryland legislature (26, or 18.4 percent, of House seats; 9, or 19.1 percent, of Senate seats), and 24 in North Carolina's 170-seat legislature (17, or 14.2 percent, of House seats; 7, or 14 percent, of Senate seats). In both states, the seat shares are lower than the population shares (24.9 and 22.0, respectively), but in North Carolina descriptive under-representation is greater; black voters in Maryland, however, enjoy a better seat/voter ratio than black North Carolinians.