National Center for Policy Analysis

MONTH IN REVIEW

Government
July, 1996

DEMOGRAPHICS MAY DOOM MINORITY DISTRICTS

Some policy analysts conclude that demographic trends related to the economic and educational progress of minorities will make it increasingly difficult to create congressional districts that will ensure the election of a particular minority.

The increase in income levels, along with the social mobility that minorities have achieved because of the civil rights movement, has led to widespread integration in upper-income housing areas. This means that creating districts with at least 60 percent minority voters -- the proportion needed to ensure a "safe" seat for a minority candidate -- is difficult and will become even more difficult in the future.

Blacks have made significant gains in the area of higher education over the past 30 years:

According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of white males completing at least four years of college rose from 10.3 percent in 1960 to 25.7 percent in 1993 -- an increase of about 150 percent.
The percentage of black males completing at least four years of college rose from 2.8 percent to 11.9 percent during the same period -- a 325 percent increase.

The growth in upper-level education has led to many minorities taking higher-level technical, managerial and professional jobs. As a result, black incomes have been rising even faster than white incomes in the middle- and upper-income ranges.

White households with annual incomes of $50,000 and above (in constant 1993 dollars) increased from 22.3 percent in 1970 to 30.4 percent by 1993 -- approximately a one-third increase.
During the same period, black households earning $50,000 or more rose from 9.1 percent to 14.5 percent -- an increase of 60 percent.
But the greatest increase in black incomes came in the $75,000 and higher income levels -- from 1.7 percent to 5.2 percent -- a 200 percent increase.

Source: Merrill Matthews (National Center for Policy Analysis), "Demographics and Minority Districts," Dallas Morning News, July 8, 1996.

HOLDING BUREAUCRATS PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE

After a 29-year battle with the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management, a Wyoming man has finally receive mining leases the BLM approved in 1967-- but has refused to give him. Experts say it is one of the longest lease battles in Department history.

After stalling, appealing and fabricating regulations, BLM bureaucrats finally released the leases last spring. They did so only after the Board of Land Appeals, the legal branch of the Interior Department, warned the BLM employees that they could be held personally responsible if they did not issue the leases.

In 1967, Eugene Simons applied to mine trona -- a mineral that provides the raw material for soda ash -- on 5,000 acres of BLM land.
But the following year Congress created the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area, which surrounded most of the leases.
However, Simons clearly qualified under a 1920s federal law that states a "permittee shall be entitled to a lease" if he has proven "the reasonable prospect of developing a paying mine."
Since Simons had staked his claim first and courts have stated that "the language shall be entitled could not be clearer," the government could not throw him out.

But it could and did stall for nearly three decades by changing its rules, demanding new data, denying the validity of the data when presented, changing and rechanging its mind after years, suddenly requiring the approval of other agencies, and so forth. As Simon won appeal after appeal, one BLM district supervisor wrote, "I cannot see how we can legally and ethically change the rules in the middle of the game." He continued, that "inaction by the BLM is entirely responsible for this fiasco" and said he would not participate.

In March 1996, Simons filed a motion to compel BLM to issue the lease. The appeals board said it had no supervisory authority over employees, but added in a footnote that a BLM employee who did not follow a previous court ruling favorable to Simons might find himself in a position of personal liability. When Simons' lawyer asked for the home addresses of BLM employees so that complaints could be serve, Simons got his leases -- after three decades.

But the battle may not be over yet. Now BLM wants to tax production from the mine at 8 percent -- rather than the 5 percent originally agreed upon way back in 1967.

Source: Samuel Western (Big Horn, Wyoming, writer), "A Man, a Mine and a 29-year Battle With Interior," Wall Street Journal, July 31, 1996.