Dissatisfaction with fair processes yielding undesirable outcomes

A week or so ago, I mocked an outraged Social Justice Warrior (Privileged classist advocate with no contextual knowledge - Math is Hard edition). The advocate was outraged that half, yes half, of all children were growing up in households below the national median in income. That was simply unacceptable to the advocate.

It might be easy to similarly mock Nate Cohn for his post, Why Hispanics Don’t Have a Larger Political Voice?. Playing it for laughs and relying on the information in the post, the alternate headline could be styled "Hispanics Voters Disadvantaged: Illegal and Underage".

But that would miss that Cohn is actually asking an interesting question and one that so many advocacy groups skate across without wishing to acknowledge. Hispanic in itself is a made up concept of dubious validity grouping, as it does, all sorts of people from widely different circumstance based on, essentially, their or one of their immediate family speaking Spanish as a mother tongue.

Granted that people of a Spanish speaking heritage are 17% of the population.

Cohn introduces his post in advocate's language. He is raising the question in the context of the apparent demise of any probable movement on immigration reform, an initiative assumed to benefit Democrats.

Hispanic-Americans are growing in number, coveted by the nation’s political parties and deeply in favor of an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws. Given this combination, why does such an overhaul still seem to be such a long shot in Washington?

One reason is that no demographic group is more marginalized in American elections than Hispanics. Many are ineligible to vote, while those who can vote often do not or are concentrated in noncompetitive districts and states. The dynamic will be particularly strong in this year’s midterms in November, when Hispanic voters will represent a tiny fraction of the electorate in the states and districts critical to the battle for control of Congress.

Marginalized implies an intentional effort to restrict. Is that what is happening? Well, not according to Cohn. As becomes clear, Hispanics are not marginalized, they are underrepresented. Isn't that the same thing? No. Why are they underrepresented? Because a large percentage are not citizens (only 69% are citizens). Oh, and also because a disproportionate number are below the age of 18 (28% of Hispanics are under 18 versus 22% for the population at large). These two factors alone mean that

As a result, only 49 percent of Hispanics are eligible to vote, compared with 74 percent of non-Hispanics. Hispanics make up just 11 percent of the voting-eligible population.

So from 17 to 11% based simply on the laws of the land regarding age and citizenship.

Impact is further reduced by low voter turnout. As Cohn points out, the Hispanic population skews younger than the population at large and young people across all demographics vote in lower concentrations than do older people. The consequence is that

In 2012, the turnout rate for potential Hispanic voters was 48 percent, compared with 66.2 percent among blacks and 64.1 percent among whites.

Finally there is the issue of historical concentration (three states have large Hispanic presence, Florida, Texas and California). This concentration is exacerbated by the Voting Rights Act which encourages the concentration of minorities to create minority majority districts.

As a result, half of all Hispanics live in just 65 of the nation’s 435 congressional districts. In districts held by House Republicans, Hispanics represent only 6.7 percent of eligible voters. There are a handful of competitive House districts with a large number of Hispanic voters, making the Hispanic population share in the House battlegrounds, at 7.4 percent, slightly higher than the Senate share. But with a healthy edge in the House, the G.O.P. can afford to lose the handful of competitive seats where Hispanics represent a meaningful share of eligible voters.

Note that this is a trade-off decision that not everyone is comfortable with. By creating majority minority districts, you virtually ensure that there is ethnic diversity in the House of Representatives which is a good outcome. On the other hand, by concentrating populations, you substantially decrease their influence in all other districts. If you had randomly assigned districts, you would likely have less visible diversity in the House but likely more Hispanic influence on legislation. For philosophical reasons you might prefer one outcome over the other but there is nothing nefarious about the issue. It is a choice.

So even though couched in advocate's language Cohn is actually dealing with a very relevant issue that centers on definitions and trade-offs in complex systems. Low Hispanic influence is not a product of nefariousness, xenophobia, or racism. It is the product of universally applied laws, personal choices, and trade-off decisions.