The key, says Maurice Cunningham, is the evolution of the strategy taken by the Voting Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division (CRD) of the Department of Justice to implement the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Cunningham approaches the furor surrounding minority voting rights as a disinterested observer who laments the loss of prestige and credibility (p. 10) that the CRD has sustained as a result of its actions under the VRA in the 1990s. Under the leadership of John Dunne and Deval Patrick, the CRD gradually yet unquestionably shifted its approach to maximizing the number of majority minority districts from a policy that balanced competing concerns about minority representation with state-level concerns about incumbency, different aspects of local representation, and so forth. To recapture its prestige and credibility—and therefore reestablish its capacity to protect effectively minority voting rights—the CRD must “recapture the balance missing from its effort in the 1990's” (p. 10).

Maximization, Whatever the Cost is a refreshing addition to the VRA literature because it is not a piece of advocacy. Instead of criticizing the stands taken by supporters and critics of the CRD and the Supreme Court in the 1990s, Cunningham demonstrates that the CRD is subject to the same pathologies and interest group pressures that affect any other bureaucratic arm of government. The result is an intriguing study of the tensions within the CRD and the role and influence of the interest groups that lobby it.

Cunningham's book is bound to upset many participants in the voting rights policy arena precisely because the analysis is so evenhanded. Minority voting rights advocates are bound to chafe at the contention that the CRD's maximization policy was not in keeping with the spirit of the VRA. Similarly, the author notes that critics of the CRD's maximization policy also suffered from tunnel vision. They were justified in at first fearing and then fighting against the maximization policy, but it is also clear that their very narrow interpretation of the VRA would hardly have served the purposes for which the act was intended.

In large part, the CRD suffers because it is charged by the VRA with two contradictory roles. On the one hand, Section 2 empowers the CRD to assist minority plaintiffs in vote dilution suits. On the other, Section 5 charges it with an adjudicatory role in assessing changes to state election laws. Cunningham argues that in the 1990s the CRD subsumed the latter role in pursuit of the former.

The CRD dispensed with the first prong of the Section 2 vote dilution test set forth by the Supreme Court in Thornburg v. Gingles (1986) (which required that a minority group be geographically compact) in favor of a standard that defined “discriminatory intent” on the part of a legislature as the adoption of any other districting scheme when one that provides for more majority-minority districts is available. The CRD then incorporated this interpretation of Section 2 into its Section 5 preclearance procedures. The result was a policy that withheld preclearance unless a state could demonstrate that it had indeed maximized opportunities for minority representation.

Cunningham demonstrates the effect of interest groups on the CRD's policymaking. It is no surprise that members of what he calls the voting rights issue network (the ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Mexican American Legal Defense Fund the Lawyers' Committee, and so on) lined up behind and worked closely with the CRD and its staff attorneys in advocating the policy of maximization. The intimacy of this relationship ultimately did the most damage to the CRD's integrity because it appeared as if the division had allowed itself to be captured by interest groups. This was manifested most clearly in the criticisms leveled at the CRD in the Johnson v. Miller (1995) litigation emanating from Georgia. Of course, the newcomer to the field will wonder what the Republican Party was doing right there, working alongside all these groups that would seem to be its traditional adversaries. Cunningham indicates that it made sense for the GOP to pursue and advocate the maximization policy (despite its philosophical opposition to affirmative action) because it enhanced opportunities to elect Republicans.

Ironically, the CRD's focus on maximization not only blinded it to the counterproductive effect it was having on minority interests (by helping the GOP) but also rendered it deaf to the pleas of black elected officials. They were willing to “settle” for minority influence districts precisely because they had gained positions of influence and established themselves as effective politicians in a manner clearly envisioned by the framers of the VRA.

Cunningham's study reveals several different fates that legislation can suffer at the hands of interest groups. The right thing can be pursued the wrong way (enhancing minority political opportunities via a maximization policy). The wrong (or at least unintended) thing can happen the right way (using the VRA to enhance Republican interests at the expense of Democratic power and therefore minority interests). Finally, the right thing can be done the right way (implement the VRA in a manner that balances theoretical ideals of minority voting rights with the concerns of local—including minority—elected officials).

Perhaps the most poignant discussion concerns the tension manifested by the second scenario. “Elite” actors, such as career voting rights attorneys, found their theoretical yet abstract vision of justice at odds with the interests of the minority elected officials (and, presumably, their constitutents) for whom they were supposed to be working. Cunningham notes (pp. 100–1) that members of the voting rights issues network became so preoccupied with achieving their maximization goal that they overlooked the fact that the VRA was designed to enhance and repair the democratic process in general.

This slender volume merits much praise. My only criticism is the wish that it were a bit longer. Cunningham peppers his discussion with excerpts from and references to interviews with key players, and it is extensively footnoted with references to respected academic sources and state actors. But at points I found myself wishing for more detail and embellishment, such as Dunne's reconciliation of his maximization policy with his membership in a Republican administration, or the discussion of how the state legislators finally caved into CRD pressure to maximize the number of majority-minority districts. The account of how black elected officials were accused of selling out because they had problems creating bizarre districts, such as the I–85 district in North Carolina, is gripping—and makes the reader wish for even more detail.

Maximization, Whatever the Cost is a breath of fresh air and a succinct inquiry into the politics and implementation of the Voting Rights Act. It puts the many works of advocacy that characterize the voting rights literature into a thoughtful political science perspective.