Former Rep. Artur Davis served as a Democrat in the House of Representatives for eight years, representing Alabama’s Seventh Congressional District.
Davis left Congress at the beginning of 2011 after he mounted a failed bid for governor in 2010. He lost the Democratic primary to a candidate who was supported by local Democratic political machines; the Republican easily beat the Democratic candidate in the general election.
Now, Davis is broadly urging nonpartisan political reforms in the South.
Over the next few days The Daily Caller will share Davis’s careful arguments for reforms to majority-minority congressional districts, which he says have warped Southern politics and have made racial issues a bigger source of political division in the South.
Davis also wants to improve voter identification laws because he has seen voter fraud used by corrupt Democratic machines to maintain control over local political and economic opportunities.
Southern Democrats need to reform themselves to match the Republicans’ greater openness to new minority politicians, he says.
The claim by national Democrats that they welcome diversity and embrace new U.S. immigrants conceals deep splits in the Hispanic and African-American communities over immigration’s impact on jobs, he told TheDC. Those worries, he said, sometimes puts Southern African-American politicians into the same immigration-reform camp as their GOP rivals.
TheDC’s video exploration of these topics — and others — with Artur Davis will be available Tuesday and Wednesday.
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