White People Won’t Vote for Blacks, Congressman Charges

The chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus on Friday urged his Capitol Hill colleagues to extend and strengthen the Voting Rights Act in order to “level the playing field” because, U.S. Rep. Melvin Watt said, “white people . . . will not consider voting for an African American candidate.”

Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, made the remarks at a Washington hearing held by the National Commission on the Voting Rights Act. The commission, a project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, is conducting nationwide hearings to gather data on voter discrimination for a report it will issue supporting the extension of the Voting Rights Act.

Watt told Cybercast News Service that his views are based on a 1980s blind poll of North Carolinians, which he said revealed that 30 percent of whites would not vote for a black candidate under any circumstances.

Watt told the commission that if another poll were conducted today, “there would be a substantial majority of white voters who would say that under no circumstances would they vote for an African American candidate.” He later amended his comments, allowing that “some of them would.”

The number of white Americans who would refuse to vote for a minority candidate is “decreasing,” Watt conceded, but he maintained that the Voting Rights Act should “adjust districts to take [racially motivated voting] into account.”

Voters refusing to vote for a minority candidate “need to be factored out of the equation,” according to Watt, because “I’ve got no use for them in the democratic process.”

Watt admitted that some black voters only cast ballots for black candidates, but said in those cases, the voters are exercising “preference,” which he said is different than “an absolute commitment” to cast a vote based on race.

“Black people have not had the luxury of being able to say, ‘Under no circumstances will I vote for a white candidate,’” Watt said.

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