If you ask most conservatives why African-Americans vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party, they will typically reply that black people are either lazy moochers who want “free stuff,” or else they’ve been duped by a massive lie that the Democrats have become the party of civil rights. Rick Perry delivered an interesting speech last week, which continues to reverberate among conservative thought leaders, in which he made an important, if not unprecedented, concession. The historic defection of the black vote, Perry admitted, reflects the failings not of African-Americans but the Republican Party itself. Perry conceded that his party’s obsession with states’ rights, including his own, alienated a constituency that has depended on the federal government to protect its rights. This is an important admission about the Republican Party’s history. What Perry has failed to display is any grasp of how African-Americans have been turned away by the Republican Party’s present incarnation.

Perry makes two important, persuasive points in his speech but fails to see how they collide with each other. The first point is that states' rights is a dangerous doctrine for African-Americans, who rely on the power of the federal government to protect them from abuses by states. Perry frames this as a confession that he has overemphasized the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves for the states or the people powers not delegated to the federal government, rather than the 14th amendment, which prevents states from denying any citizen equal protection of the laws. “There has been, and there will continue to be, an important and a legitimate role for the federal government in enforcing Civil Rights,” Perry said, “Too often, we Republicans, me included, have emphasized our message on the 10th Amendment but not our message on the 14th.”

Perry’s second point is that urban policy often works to the detriment of the disadvantaged. “In blue state coastal cities, you have these strict zoning laws, environmental regulations that have prevented buildings from expanding the housing supply. And that may be great for the venture capitalist who wants to keep a nice view of San Francisco Bay. But it’s not so great for the single mother working two jobs in order to pay rent and still put food on the table for her kids.”

Perry frames the latter as an indictment of government in general. But it is actually an indictment of localized government regulation. This is an aspect of government policy where Perry can legitimately boast that his state has outperformed the blue-state model. Deregulated zoning has allowed Texas to create affordable housing that is denied residents of big coastal cities.