Gerrymandering in the United States

The United States has a long history of gerrymandering, or the manipulation of political district borders to give one group a political advantage over another. The term "gerrymandering" itself was coined in the US in 1812, although the phenomenon existed even earlier. Political districts, or administrative divisions of voters, are important to democratic governments because they impact the way citizens are represented by elected officials. In gerrymandering, officials skew district borders to secure more favorable voters for themselves or their party, or to sabotage the prospects of political opponents. Gerrymandering is often viewed negatively and has been hotly debated, but is usually legal in the United States. Only certain forms of gerrymandering based on reducing the voting power of minority citizens have been declared illegal.

Although gerrymandering is as old as the United States and a common factor in modern politics, many critics decry it as an obstruction to true democracy. Critics have noted that gerrymandering techniques can allow candidates to select their own voters while silencing opponents and challengers. Excessive gerrymandering may skew election results and representation. It may also build feelings of resentment between communities and political parties that might cloud their judgment and interfere with the cooperation needed for the best interests of the United States.

Background

The United States and other democracies allow citizens to vote for the officials who will represent them in the government. Political organizers face the challenge of dividing groups of voters in various areas so that their votes for various officials may be tallied accurately. The resulting political divisions are known as districts. Voters within each district are responsible for electing all of their respective officials for the US House of Representatives as well as state legislators.

District lines are often the subject of debate and scrutiny among political experts, especially when the lines are evaluated or restructured. Every ten years, following the completion and analysis of the US Census, political leaders in each state meet to restructure districts. Restructuring involves many criteria, but under federal law, the districts must be balanced in their population density as well as their mixture of people of different races and backgrounds.

The practice of districting and redistricting is established in the US Constitution. The country’s founders considered the practice essential to properly apportioning representatives to states and regions, or assuring that people in various areas have sufficient and equal say in the government. For that reason, districts are required to be as close as possible to each other in population, with any major deviations clearly explained and justified.

Although districting is closely regulated by the government, it is frequently debated and can be prone to misuse. Throughout history, legislators and their supporters have found many ways to manipulate redistricting to better serve their own needs, rather than the overall needs of the country. Changing voting districts could serve to build a strong majority vote for a desired party or policy, or break up opposing voters so they are unable to vote against particular measures.

Many questionable practices have emerged, including cracking and packing. Cracking describes the splitting of a group of voters into multiple districts to keep those voters from achieving a majority. Packing means combining a group of voters into a single district to isolate those voters from influencing neighboring districts. Cracking, packing, and other techniques of manipulating political districts have come to be collectively known as gerrymandering.

Overview

The phenomenon of gerrymandering appeared in the earliest days of the US government, even as the Constitution was being ratified. One of the first major demonstrations of gerrymandering in the United States occurred in 1788 in the new state of Virginia, in which former governor Patrick Henry attempted to use redistricting to sabotage his rival James Madison. This attempt did not work, however, and Madison went on to a storied political career that included serving as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817.

At the time of Henry’s machinations, the term “gerrymander” had not yet originated. The term first appeared in an 1812 political cartoon printed in the Boston Gazette. The cartoon referenced the plotting of Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry to redistrict voting areas in his state to help his party, the Democratic-Republicans, win more influence by isolating his opponents. Gerry created a new district shaped in a narrow, jagged curve. Critics joked that the conspicuously engineered district looked like a dragon or a salamander. The Boston Gazette combined the name “Gerry” with “salamander” to create “gerrymander,” which soon entered the political lexicon of the young country.

In the following years, political officials and citizens alike used the term “gerrymander” for two main purposes. The main reason was to accuse a politician or party of using devious redistricting tactics for their own benefits, or to insult the results of their scheme. That main meaning does not necessarily carry claims of illegality. The second main purpose, however, does deal with the legal context, and involves more serious considerations of whether redistricting policies and proposals violate the established laws of the Constitution and other documents and precedents.

In the early years of the US government, many states held statewide votes for their members of the US House of Representatives, which essentially granted the majority party total control of the choice. This practice ended in 1842 with the passing of the Apportionment Act, which required that states form voting districts for congressional elections. The Apportionment Act further clarified districting rules by requiring that districts be compactly formed, to help discourage attempts to form irregularly shaped districts for purely political reasons. It also established that each member of Congress would represent a set number of citizens, initially 70,680.

The addition of new states throughout the 1800s led to an array of conflicts, including disputes over apportioning and districting. State and federal legislation updated throughout this period to adapt to changing situations and new questions and challenges. Another social upheaval arrived following the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the nationwide abolition of slavery, when voting rights were extended to all male citizens regardless of race. Districting subsequently took on its modern racial aspect in addition to its traditional political aspect.

The original form of gerrymandering is referred to in modern times as “partisan gerrymandering.” This is the variety of gerrymandering that aims specifically at manipulating districts to favor one political party or hinder another. Many court cases have explored the legal limits of partisan gerrymandering, with unclear and challenging results. For example, the US Supreme Court tried two cases in 2019, Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek, relating to partisan gerrymandering, and concluded that the complex implications of the practice extend beyond the federal judiciary’s powers to decide.

Another form of gerrymandering developed during the nineteenth century based on race. Following the extension of voting rights to male citizens of all races, including formerly enslaved African Americans, legislators and other officials in many parts of the country invented schemes to deprive these new voters of political influence. One primary means was to create district borders based on the percentages of racial minorities in a region. Using various gerrymandering tactics, officials could attempt to break the power of African American communities to sway elections or promote minority candidates.

Although the legality of partisan gerrymandering is debated, racial gerrymandering was banned by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That act served to protect all citizens, regardless of race, from any attempts to limit their ability to vote or hinder the effect of their votes. Attempts to gerrymander along racial lines are, in modern times, strictly illegal. However, federal officials have legalized and promoted a certain districting tactic known as majority-minority districting, in which districts may be formed around minority communities with the intent of giving them a stronger say in elections.

Supporters of majority-minority tactics claim this is an efficient means of protecting racial-minority communities from being purposely split up (“cracked”) so they cannot form a majority vote, and that its practice has helped to install many more minority legislators into office. Critics, however, believe that majority-minority structures “pack” racial minorities into small areas and keep them from influencing the voting of neighboring districts, thus limiting the spread of their ideas.

The rules of districting and approaches to gerrymandering continued to be discussed throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. Important US Supreme Court cases relating to gerrymandering include Shaw v. Reno (1993), Shaw v. Hunt (1996) and Hunt v. Cromartie (1999), which deal with the fine balance between illegal racial gerrymandering and potentially legal partisan gerrymandering. In Vieth v. Jubelirer (2004) the Supreme Court found that gerrymandering in general was not unconstitutional, but found the issue nonjusticiable. The court again largely sidestepped the issue in Gill v. Whitford (2018) and two related cases. However, the conservative-led 5–4 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019 generated much controversy for essentially approving political gerrymandering.

Many high-profiles examples of gerrymandering have earned media coverage, with both sides of the political spectrum taking part. For example, in 2001, then-Senator Barack Obama used redistricting to create a favorable pool of voters for himself in Illinois, which included an African American majority as well as more-affluent European American and Jewish American groups likely to support his Democratic campaign. In 2003, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay used redistricting tactics in Texas to create a stronghold for his Republican supporters. Although highly controversial, most of his plan was deemed legal except for one districting choice seen as inappropriately race-based.

Redistricting following a new US Census provides a particular opportunity for gerrymandering, especially if one party has widespread control in the immediate wake of the census. For instance, in the 2010 midterm elections Republicans gained control of many state legislatures, which experts noted led to heavy pro-Republican gerrymandering tied to the 2010 census results. With the partisan divide growing ever starker in American society, the release of the 2020 US Census once again brought increased attention to gerrymandering, especially as redistricting would take place for the first time since the Rucho v. Common Cause ruling that partisan gerrymandering could not be contested in federal court. Many observers noted that this could have a major impact on voting results for the foreseeable future.

Indeed, notably gerrymandered congressional maps were subsequently drawn up in several states. Some of these led to significant legal cases. Alabama's 2021 map was challenged by opponents who claimed it amounted to racial gerrymandering by splitting up Black voters. In 2022, a federal district court struck the map down for violating the Voting Rights Act. An appeal to the US Supreme Court meant that the map was used in the 2022 election, but in June 2023 the Supreme Court upheld the lower court ruling in Allen v. Milligan. A second map proposed by Alabama was rejected on the same grounds in September 2023, triggering the court-ordered appointment of a special master to submit alternative districting plans. Meanwhile, South Carolina's map was also challenged for alleged racial gerrymandering, though Republican legislators claimed it was based only on political factors. The case was heard by the Supreme Court in October 2023, with legal experts noting that it hinged on different principles than the Alabama case.

Other states also grappled with gerrymandering in the early 2020s. While some approved starkly partisan congressional maps, others took steps to limit such manipulation. For example, state courts in Pennsylvania and North Carolina rejected gerrymandered maps that favored Republicans and instituted court-imposed maps. In March 2022, the US Supreme Court upheld the state courts' actions in those cases. (However, in April 2023 the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned its own previous ruling after coming under Republican control.) In December 2023, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected a Republican-drawn district map for violating the state constitution.

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