Political Gerrymandering

People hold signs during a rally at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., calling for "an end to partisan gerrymandering," October 3, 2017.

Written by Hannah Oommen on June 3, 2023.

    Recently bills have been made to abolish the practice of gerrymandering. Every ten years, the US Census Bereau allows states to redistrict their electoral constituency. Gerrymandering is the practice of manipulating these boundaries so as to set certain political groups at advantageous or disadvantageous positions, fueled by the drive to create partisan advantage.

According to Brennan Center for Justice there have been two types of gerrymandering being used: “Cracking and packing”.

Cracking in simple terms is the practice of dispersing people with similar ideologies across multiple electoral districts, diminishing the chances that their preferred candidate is elected.

    Packing is when the people are squished together in a  few districts. Therefore although they can at least elect their preferred candidate it will not matter anyways due to their votes being weakened. These practices allow for certain groups to have their votes and voices heard whereas the minorities don't. This practice is unconstitutional from the supreme court ruling.

    Gil v. Whitford in summary the Wisconsin State divided the districts in 2011 when heard in federal court the argument made was that this method was unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering 

While it may seem too corrupt of a practice to be happening around us, multiple examples of gerrymandering can be seen across the US. 

Examples of where gerrymandering happening currently in America:

Alabama, Louisiana, Maryland, Tennessee and more. 

Action taken to get rid of gerrymandering:

    Currently, two gerrymandering cases including South Carolina’s racial gerrymandering case and it will be heard in the supreme courts during its next term in October.

    In 1960 the case Gomillion v. Lightfoot the court ruled that the Alabama legislature could not change the boundaries of the city of Tuskegee in order to deprive the African Americans their right to vote in the city elections.

    The apportionment act of 1842 states that representatives must be elected from single member districts that are composed of contiguous territory. However, some amendments have been created towards this act. In 1872 congress added a requirement that dirstics should trial to have as nearly as possible an equal number of inhabitants. In addition, in 1901 and 1911 legislation enacted that the districts must be compact.

What effects does this practice cause on the community:

    Now, in South Carolina there is a partisan gerrymandering case that the Supreme Court has agreed to review. South Carolina partisan gerrymandering is essentially about a congressional map that would perhaps “deny Black South Carolinians” their right to vote for a representative that has similar ideas as them. However, this congressional mapping has gained wide support from Republicans with a GOP (republican party) voting 6-1 in the U.S. House delegation and another Republican Nancy Mace who was a state lawmaker and Trump’s former campaign manager.

    During the extensive judicial debate no judge spoke out in favor of Partisan Gerrymandering

Pages 33-55 Author John Stevens states that there should be an amendment that applies to federal judges to treat racial gerrymandering the same as political. In Massachusetts on February 12, 1812 Elbrige Gerry the governor at that time along with other republicans redraw congressional maps of exactly thirty  senatorial districts. Republicans availed this to gain the majority against federalism. Meaning out of the 101,930 votes casted 51,766 were federalist yet elected only 11 senator while that republicans had 50,164 and were deemed the “majority and elected 29 senators Gerrymandering has two different varieties of gerrymandering Political gerrymandering and Racial gerrymandering.

Questions the reader can ask themselves:

How does Gerrymandering affect our fourteenth amendment?

Should there be an amendment in the constitution that restricts Partisan Gerrymandering why or why not?

Is Gerrymandering similar to redlining?