ThoughtCo. In designing Virginias very first congressional map, Patrick Henry attempted to draw district boundaries that would block his rival, James Madison, from winning a seat. The term gerrymandering is derived from Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814), the governor of Massachusetts from 1810 to 1812. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. However, in the big sense, it rendered us powerless in that the surrounding white communities and representatives didnt need us, and they could label our party as the black party. Having lost their voting strength, Democrats are now running up against the reality that Republicans are firmly in control of mapmaking in a majority of states. (This is a simplified example, but a map with a similar outcome was used in North Carolina, where Democrats won half the vote in 2018 but just three of 13 House seats.). The Brennan Center works to reform and defend our countrys systems of democracy and justice. Gerrymandering has become common in American politics and is often blamed for the gridlock in Congress, polarization of the electorate and disenfranchisement among voters. And that is the last thing politicians are thinking about when they're drawing these lines. Want to read all 2 pages? How Vacancies in the US Congress are Filled, What Is a Caucus? The problem that Democrats have is they have sorted themselves into like-minded communities, and it makes it very easy to draw lines that advantage the Republican Party because you can put all the Democrats into one single area. So what do you say has gone off the rails with this process? Cracking-breaking up districts so your party always has more democratic or republican voters Packing-Putting all of the democrats or republicans into very few districts while the opposing side is made up of many Why? You can make it so seven out of the nine districts vote for Yellow Party candidates, or so every single district votes for Purple Party candidates, he said. What do you learn about power from the simulation and the way this practice plays out in the real world? In many states, it is possible to draw a politically balanced and competitive map but you have to try. Get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons. Computers and GIS were utilized in the 1990, 2000, and 2010 Census by the states to make redistricting as fair as possible. Independent panels look different everywhere, but, as the same article explains, All truly independent panels operate outside the legislatures influence.. Both sides are infected with it. Gerrymandering. Although siding with the plurality in rejecting the challenge to the political gerrymander in question, Justice Anthony Kennedy asserted that it had not been long enough since the Bandemer decision to conclude that no suitable standards could ever emerge (by the timeline of the law 18 years is rather a short period). Katie Fahey, thanks so much for joining us. Before you play the gerrymandering game, get familiar with a few key terms that youll encounter: Write down what, if anything, you know about each of these terms. All involve creating districts that have a goal of encompassing a certain percentage of voters from one political party. Gerrymandering is so effective because the US uses single-member districts where there can only be one winner. Yet the Supreme Court has not granted these multiracial coalition districts the same legal protections as majority-minority districts, making them a key target for dismantling by partisan map drawers. Why is making compact districts important? The plaintiffs argued that efficiency gaps of 7 percent or greater were legally significant because they were more likely than smaller gaps to persist through the 10-year life of a redistricting plan. In most states, that line-drawing process is actually done by the people in office, so by politicians. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, whose administration enacted a law in 1812 defining new state senatorial districts. Gerrymandering reduces the number of competitive congressional races across the United States by segregating like-minded voters from each other. The opposition party, the Federalists, were quite upset. That's an . In most cases, the process of drawing congressional and legislative boundaries is left to state legislatures. End of preview. This process is called redistricting. There are more possibilities, and they add up. It always bothered me, in terms of gerrymandering, that there was what I call a finger that scooped down into what was otherwise my district that interrupted the compactness and scooped out the wealthier households, which are more white and Republican. And that last redistricting cycle happened in 2010. The Boston Weekly Messenger brought the term 'gerrymander' into common usage, when it subsequently printed an editorial cartoon that showed the district in question with a monster's head, arms, and tail, and named the creature a gerrymander. "What Is Gerrymandering?" The Courts ruling, however, did not consider whether the efficiency gap amounted to the judicially discernible and manageable standard it had been waiting for. We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. When you find people who are in tears because you lost, then you know that you have not only stirred the emotions, but also the hope. Today, Clayton feels that a minority candidate like herself can appeal to everyone. This road is sort of the boundary. District shape: Oddly shaped districts are often viewed as a telltale sign of a gerrymander, and "compact" districts with cleaner shapes are posed by some as the solution. What it has become to mean is districts that I dont like because somebody else drew them. The former steel town of Tarentum in western Pennsylvania is a mix of working-class Republicans and Democrats. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. Thats how people express themselves. Fifty years ago, before the days of majority-minority districts, Eva Clayton ran for Congress and lost. Click on the link below to play Can You Gerrymander Your Party to Power? Be sure to read the instructions closely. "A state may take race into account as one of several factors when drawing district linesbut without a compelling reason, race cannot be the 'predominant' reason for a districts shape," according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Who do you think should be in charge of a states redistricting in the real world? 7. First, lets take the states where one party has control of redistricting. Any election year ending in zero because it's a census year are the years that redistricting happened, which is what has made 2020 so extra-important - because it will have implications between now and 2030. I actually think that's one of the most important reasons for all of us to care about redistricting - because a lot of people like saying we live in communities that are only red or blue, but we don't. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. They are literally going through communities and drawing these lines to figure out which voters do they want in their district and which ones don't they want. With redistricting now beginning in many states, the need for Congress to pass reform legislation is more urgent than ever. ThoughtCo, Dec. 20, 2020, thoughtco.com/what-is-gerrymandering-4057603. How do you think the process and outcome would have been different if it were controlled by a bipartisan committee, that is, a group made up of members from both parties? We just had $14 billion spent in this election. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Following Kennedys retirement in 2018, the Supreme Court once again took up the issue of the justiciability of political gerrymandering claims in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019). This website helped me pass! Heres a breakdown of who is responsible for redistricting in each state: State legislatures: In 30 states, the elected state lawmakers are responsible for drawing their own legislative districts and in 31 states the boundaries for the congressional districts in their states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York Universitys School of Law. After the Census Bureau releasesdetailed population and demographic data from the 2020 census on August 12, states and local governments begin the once-a-decade process of drawing new voting district boundaries known as redistricting. Theyre one community, except for the fact they were represented by two different members of Congress. In the decade after each new census, states redraw their congressional and legislative districts. Then, youll explore additional articles and videos to find out what redistricting and gerrymandering look like in the real world. And why do you say it's gotten completely distorted? View Copy_of_Gerrymandering from ENGLISH W131 at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory Schoo. Do you think gerrymandering should be allowed? For example, did you find it easy or difficult? If you successfully gerrymandered your way to power, you saw the message, Good for your party, not so good for democracy. What do the writers mean by that? With their voting strength divided, these groups struggle to elect their preferred candidates in any of the districts. Im against racism. Matt Rosenberg is an award-winning geographer and the author of "The Handy Geography Answer Book" and "The Geography Bee Complete Preparation Handbook. This manipulation of electoral districts is known as gerrymandering. Definition and Examples, How the Votes Are Counted on Election Day, About the Legislative Branch of U.S. Government, How the US Electoral College System Works, What Is Dealignment? "No," said another Federalist, "it's a gerrymander." Most recently, the Supreme Court ruled in 1985 that manipulating district borders to give an advantage to one political party was unconstitutional. Describe the two ways that officials gerrymander a district? Despite the use of computers, politics does get in the way and many redistricting plans are challenged in the courts, with accusations of racial gerrymandering tossed about. New majority-minority districts, where minority residents of voting age made up more than 50 percent of the population. The term "gerrymandering" was coined after a review of Massachusetts 's redistricting maps of 1812 set . While legislative and congressional district shapes may look wildly different from state to state, most attempts to gerrymander can best be understood through the lens of two basic techniques: cracking and packing. Done right, redistricting is a chance to create maps that, in the words of John Adams, are an exact portrait, a miniature of the people as a whole. I personally would vote for what my constituents want because it would mean I would get more and more votes from people. In California, in fact, only one congressional incumbent lost reelection from 2000 to 2010. And gerrymandering is this process of instead of really looking at, how do we make sure that these election maps actually represent communities that then can be represented in state capitals and in Washington, D.C., it's more focused on, how can we guarantee that even if less voters want us to be winning, we can make sure our party stays in power? Finally, the "stacked" method involves drawing bizarre boundaries to concentrate the power of the majority party by linking distant areas into specific, party-in-power districts. Gerrymandering refers to the practice in which state legislatures draw congressional districts in a particular way in order to increase the likelihood of certain political parties or interest . They would probably come here to Cumberland, divide it up and do something like this, and try to find a district by combining all over the state. In 1842, the Reapportionment Act required that congressional districts be contiguous and compact. Put another way: If line-drawers were instructed to ignore partisanship entirely, they would be more likely to draw a map that favors Republicans, because of where Republicans and Democrats happen to live (Democrats are concentrated in cities). 4. But not all. "Gerrymandering is not hard,"Sam Wang, the founder of Princeton University's Election Consortium, wrote in 2012. Rather than voters choosing their representatives, gerrymandering empowers politicians to choose their voters. The Supreme Court followed up in 2015 by saying states could form independent, nonpartisan commissions to redraw legislative and congressional boundaries. Omissions? In this strategy, congressional districts are drawn in order to put as many people likely to vote for one party in the same district. In 1812, Governor Gerry signed a bill into law that redistricted his state to overwhelmingly benefit his party, the Democratic-Republican Party. Landslide Concept, Causes & Facts | What is a Landslide? In Davis v. Bandemer (1986), however, a plurality of the Supreme Court held that political gerrymanders could be found unconstitutional (under the equal protection clause) if the resulting electoral system is arranged in a manner that will consistently degrade a voters or a group of voters influence in the political process as a whole. A majority of the Court also agreed that the instance of gerrymandering before it did not display any of the identifying characteristics of a nonjusticiable political question that had been laid out in Baker v. Carr, including, as the Baker Court had put it, a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it. Although the majority in Bandemer could not agree on what standards should be used to adjudicate challenges to political gerrymanders, it refused to accept that none existed, declaring on that basis that we decline to hold that such claims are never justiciable., In 2004, in Vieth v. Jubelirer, a plurality of the Court pointedly embraced what the Bandemer Court had declined to hold, on the grounds that no judicially discernible and manageable standards for adjudicating political gerrymandering claims have emerged since the Bandemer decision. In battleground Pennsylvania, for example, the congressional map gave Republicans a virtual lock on 13 of the state's 18 congressional districts, even in elections where Democrats won the majority of the statewide congressional vote. - Definition, Violations & History, Working Scholars Bringing Tuition-Free College to the Community. In 1962, the Supreme Court ruled that districts must follow the principle of "one man, one vote" and have fair borders and an appropriate population mixture. Basic data must be provided to the states within one year of the Census - April 1, 2021. 3. If you could pack many of the Democrats into just two districts where they have an overwhelming advantage, and crack the remaining Democrats across the other eight, youd get a result like this where Republicans are set to dominate an evenly divided state just because of how the lines are drawn. It they are looking for more of a peoples person outlook, they should vote for what there constituents want. In real-life redistricting, several (sometimes conflicting) factors often come into play: The tricky part lies in determining how to balance all those interests. But if you lived on this side, your congressman was 60 miles away in Johnstown, Pa. Its a small town. Because communities change, redistricting is critical to our democracy: maps must be redrawn to ensure that districts are equally populated, comply with laws such as the Voting Rights Act, and are otherwise representative of a states population. I mean, how, in your view, does - did past gerrymandering efforts affect the election results that are still being counted and are certainly being litigated in some places? Every 10 years, states redraw their legislative and congressional district lines following the census. So they overspent a lot of money in some races that normally wouldn't get a lot of money spent in them. (2020, August 27). And when the focus is on that, and you're changing the rules of how elections are run, then the way that those elections are run start to benefit more political parties and individual candidates rather than us, the voters - the people who should be deciding our elections. The U.S. Census Bureau's Redistricting site provides additional information about their program. Why do you think Congress made this kind of racial gerrymandering illegal? In the game, you belonged to either the yellow or purple party, and your party got to be in charge of drawing Hexapoliss districts. The first is called packing. How Political Parties Choose Voters Instead of Voters Choosing Them. In the instance that gave the "gerrymander" its name . You can find them all here. States with divided partisan control: Finally, there are some states where the two parties are sharing power. Winning by too big in a district means youve wasted some votes that could be used to counteract your opponents elsewhere. I think it is really hard to think about that. All rights reserved. It could be five Democratic seats. Democrats dont like the fact that Republicans took over a lot of state legislatures, and what weve seen with Democrats across the country is to look for bogeymen under every rock they can to explain their electoral failures. Democrats big opportunities (NY, IL): Democrats biggest opportunity for gerrymandering is in the large state of New York, where the legislature can override the commission thats nominally in charge. In states where they controlled the process of drawing congressional district boundaries, they captured seven out of 10 seats with only 56 percent of the popular vote. Gerry was the second vice president to die in office. The states that allow their legislatures to perform the redistricting are: Independent commissions: These apolitical panels are used in four states to redraw legislative districts. Fair representation depends on it. In such a system, the seats in the legislature each party gets would depend on what proportion of the vote they win in the relevant area. Gerrymandering isnt new, but recent trends in US politics have amped up its national importance. All rights reserved. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. This is true regardless of whether it is Democrats or Republicans drawing the maps. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. For Congress, the GOP doesnt have sole control over maps for the entire country; Democratic-controlled states and independent commissions will submit maps, too. Republicans are trying to gerrymander themselves into control of the House of Representatives and they very well might succeed. Im running for Congress. In the 1992 elections, the new majority-minority districts achieved their goal, and 17 new black representatives were elected to Congress. And, of course, it is my opinion that Democrats want to use the courts to do what they cant win at the ballot box, and that is elections. Across the country, gerrymandering is facing challenges in court. Governor Gerry went on to become vice president under James Madison from 1813 until his death a year later. But Democrats suffered bitter defeats as well. MARTIN: And I do want to point out that this is something that has - both parties have been accused of this, and both parties have been successfully litigated against. And Democrats failed to make much progress flipping state legislative chambers. FAHEY: Yes. Multiple seats, perhaps, in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia. Enrolling in a course lets you earn progress by passing quizzes and exams. Updated on January 15, 2020. To keep politics and the potential for gerrymandering out of the process, state lawmakers and public officials are prohibited from serving on the commissions. What does it mean to make a district compact? In representative democracies, gerrymandering ( / drimndr /, originally / rimndr /) [1] [2] is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: "The Constitution supplies no objective measure for assessing whether a districting map treats a political party fairly.". Let me tell you that the Voting Rights Act has the potential to really shake things up and frankly it is frightening to the Democrats. Very quickly, the Republican politicos figured out that if you drew three minority-majority districts, it meant that there were three incredibly Democrat districts, which meant there were more Republicans in the other eight or 10 districts. So the Republicans went to the African-American community, largely Democratic, and said, Lets make a deal. In South Carolina, blacks and Republicans are already talking about a crescent-shaped district through the southern part of the state. The alliance, when it comes to redistricting, between the Republicans, mostly in the South, and the African-Americans, mostly in the South, has been called The unholy alliance. Certainly, the Republicans knew what they were doing. The For the People Act, a landmark piece of federal democracy reform legislation that has already passed the House, represents a major step toward curbing political gamesmanship in map drawing. In swing-state legislatures, the situation was starker Republicans gerrymandered and have held legislatures in states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania ever since. Describe the two ways that officials gerrymander a district? It happens every 10 years, after the census, to reflect the changes in population. Gerrymander - a voting district game by GameTheory GerryMander is a simply puzzle game designed to show you how gerrymandering can be used to rig an election. The public is largely shut out of the process," wroteErika L. Wood, the director of the Redistricting & Representation Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. There the Courts conservative majority, over the bitter objections of its more liberal members, declared (54) that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts. Extreme gerrymandering is also an issue in the ongoing caseMoorev.Harper, argued before theSupreme Courtin December 2022. v. t. e. Gerrymandering is the practice of setting boundaries of electoral districts to favor specific political interests within legislative bodies, often resulting in districts with convoluted, winding boundaries rather than compact areas. So that was a beautiful, historical moment. We too sing America. I felt privileged, I felt honored, and I felt humbled and blessed. But for the Democrats, who still controlled the redistricting process, there was a price to pay. and more. Targeting the political power of communities of color is also often a key element of partisan gerrymandering. And its perfectly legal. Rosenberg, Matt. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. The bill would enhance transparency, strengthen protections for communities of color, and ban partisan gerrymandering in congressional redistricting. According to a tally by Stephen Wolf for Daily Kos Elections, Republicans have sole control of line-drawing for 38 percent of House districts, and Democrats only have 16 percent.
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