The Lion's Den: Black Power in El Paso

I spend a lot of time looking at election maps and demographics to analyze a person's chance at winning a given race, and something caught my eye in the last couple of rounds of elections.

The emergence of a strong vote from the African-American community. An African-American community is not a new thing in El Paso, but the strong voice in local elections is something that has seen an increase over the last year.

There are at least three reasons that have contributed to this change and why African-Americans will only gain in influence on the El Paso election map.

Hurricane Katrina, BRAC, and Barack Obama.

I spent election night (for the run-off election) at city Rep. Carl Robinson's campaign headquarters in Northeast El Paso and had a chance to talk with a lot of his African-American supporters. Most of them didn't have a terribly long amount of time in El Paso but were already casting ballots in local elections. Many of them came to El Paso either as a result of Hurricane Katrina or through the military.

If you look at the numbers, Robinson even beat his opponent in her own precinct. Another interesting fact is that turnout actually went up between the general election and the run-off election for the seat in the Northeast. The Northeast is the part of town with the highest concentration of African-Americans.

Perhaps it's because of the civil rights struggle over many years, but African-Americans, at least annecdotaly, have much more unity at the ballot box than Latino voters and come out to vote for candidates they support with greater reliability than Latinos.

I also noticed a large contingent of African-American voters during the primary and general elections in the 2008 presidential campaign. The primary was the most notable because as an Obama supporter I got to see first hand the strength of the African-American vote in El Paso. In fact, amongst party regulars, there was only one African-American part activist who supported Hillary Clinton.

The African-American community voted 98 percent in support of President Obama during his election bid, which mean that even African-American Republicans crossed party lines, something made public by the endorsement of former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

I attended a meeting of the Black El Paso Democrats last night and it was a small turnout, mostly because several key members were in New York attending the 100th Convention of the NAACP, headlined of course by President Obama. Three of the people in attendance were candidates for upcoming elections, which made up 30 percent of the people in attendance at the time I left. I later spoke to the President of the Black El Paso Democrats, Don Williams, about the increase in activism in the African-American community in El Paso.

"It's not an emergence, it's a reawakening and increase in activity," Williams said. He believes that there is a good reason there has been an increase in activity in terms of the politics in the African-American community. "The election of Barack Obama showed that all the work that has been done in the past can pay off."

I witnessed a speech made by Williams at the Texas Democratic Party State Convention in Austin last year in which Williams talked about the historic opportunity to elect an African-American president, and his personal struggle in the Civil Rights Movement. Not only did Williams come to tears, so did nearly everyone else in the room.

What makes the African-American community unique in El Paso politics is that they represent a true voting bloc that is much more disciplined about staying united than Latinos, which make up most of the local Democratic Party structure.

Carl Robinson's victory was at least partially due to the strength of the African-American vote. Black churches historically have been politically active and provided their membership with guidance in a way that was eventually duplicated by Karl Rove and the conservative movement. If you recall, an African-American clergy member even led the party in a religious song at Robinson's victory celebration. Last night's meeting of the Black El Paso Democrats began and ended with a prayer.

Williams pointed out that a study was done a couple years ago that showed that the African-American community in El Paso, though small, has a higher income and education level than any other group, which may be yet another contributing factor to black power at the ballot.

The Democratic Party in El Paso is fractured based on the various factions fighting for control. In terms of structure within the Democratic Party clubs, which leverage tremendous influence within the party, there is a schism between two major factions, the Tejano Democrats that make up the "old guard" of El Paso Democratic Party politics, and state Rep. Norma Chavez's faction, the Camino Real Mexican American Democrats. Though there are some who are members of both, they are relatively few in number compared to the number of party Dems who choose one over the other.

The Black El Paso Democrats are not seen within the party as a rival faction, which is an advantage the club enjoys because they are able to have good relations with party activists from all factions. The Black El Paso Democrats are able to have a voice in party decisions, platform priorities, and support of candidates of their choosing. That's one of the reasons that their endorsement is sought by candidates.

But the Black El Paso Democrats will soon become the X-Factor in Democratic Party politics because their membership is comprised of many Democratic Party activists from both factions. In the very near future, though small in numbers, they will be able to shift the balance of power to the faction of their choosing.

A short thought on another issue

Carl Robinson received the endorsement of the Black El Paso Democrats and one of the issues of the Democratic Party is equitable treatment for the gay community. Carl Robinson has expressed some hesitation about supporting a city ordinance protecting homosexuals from discrimination based on moral concerns. It will be interesting to see how Robinson makes his decision on the issue. Does he follow the party line or religious dogma?

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Abeytia writes the Lionstar blog and is a political animal who spends way too much time traveling the wilds of El Paso politics. Reach him at lionstar@thelionstarblog.com.