Shifting to State Block Grants: The Priorities of Urban Minorities

Abstract

This research examines a number of hypotheses expressed by civil rights leaders in the Southwestern states regarding the predicted effects of slate implementation of the nine block grants authorized by the Omnibus Budget and Reconciliation Act of 1981. It is based on the testimony of 121 speakers at two successive public block grant hearings conducted by the State of Texas in Houston in 1982 and 1983. The speakers are classified by race, affiliation, and programmatic preferences. The research is also based on financial and regulatory data tracking shifts in state spending and distributional rules between Fy 82 and Fy 84. The results show that most of the fears of the civil rights leaders were not realized. Minority participation at public hearings increased, rather than decreased. State funding priorities did not change significantly, nor did allocation decision rules shift in emphasis from redistribution to equalization. “Brutal political struggles” between groups competing for funds (especially blacks and Hispanics) did not materialize. However, the potential for such struggles remains strong. The findings reveal significant black-Hispanic differences with regard to programmatic priorities and perceptions of the “fairness” of the current distributional system. The paper concludes with a call for new stale-based theories of block grant agenda setting and government responsiveness in centralized versus decentralized systems. It predicts that such reexaminations will yield new theories regarding the formation and stability of racial and ethnic coalitions in state politics.