Gerrymandering often leads to disproportionate politicians from one party being elected to office. ‘This is a government that blatantly indulged in open gerrymander, for example the re-allocation of defence force votes among surrounding marginal seats.’ ‘He said the Government's electoral reforms would create a gerrymander, where electoral boundaries are created to give one party an advantage.’ The public is largely shut out of the process," wrote Erika L. Wood, the director of the Redistricting & Representation Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. Republican strategist Karl Rove wrote in The Wall Street Journal before the midterm elections in 2010: The Republican victories in statehouses across the country allowed the GOP in those states to then control the redistricting process taking effect in 2012 and shape congressional races, and ultimately policy, until the next census in 2020. gerrymandering meaning: 1. an occasion when someone in authority changes the borders of an area in order to increase the…. The same was true for Democrats. President Barack Obama, speaking in his final State of the Union address in 2016, called on both the Republican and Democratic parties to end the practice. Updates? Brian Duignan is a senior editor at Encyclopædia Britannica. [ ( jer-ee-man-duhr) ] To change the boundaries of legislative districts to favor one party over another. Gerrymandering has become common in American politics and is often blamed for the gridlock in Congress, polarization of the electorate and disenfranchisement among voters. Every 10 years there's a U.S. Census, and based on that census, different states will might get a few more representatives or a few less representatives, and so state legislatures will often have to redistrict. Typically, the dominant party in a state legislature (which is responsible for drawing the boundaries of congressional districts) will try to concentrate the opposing party's strength in as few districts as possible, while giving itself likely majorities in as many districts as possible. Following Kennedy’s 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). The authors of the 2011 map were able to preserve relatively compact and even-looking districts. Gerrymandering occurs when voting districts are redrawn to benefit one party over another in elections, forcing the other side to “waste” votes. The governors in most of those states have the authority to veto the plans. gerrymandering and the constitutional norm against government partisanship Instead the bureaucratic fat keeps growing, aggravated by an increasing trend toward congressional gerrymandering and the ever-growing number of party-list representatives, many of them with vague constituencies. Just such a standard was proposed in Gill v. Whitford (2018), a challenge to a Wisconsin redistricting law enacted by the Republican-controlled state legislature following the 2010 decennial census. The act, process, or an instance of gerrymandering. Corrections? Charles Ledyard Norton, writing in the 1890 book Political Americanisms, blamed Gerry for signing into a law a bill in 1811 "readjusting the representative districts so as to favor the Democrats and weaken the Federalists, although the last-named party polled nearly two-thirds of the votes cast.". Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). The four states that employ independent commissions are: Advisory commissions: Four states use and advisory commission consisting of a mix of legislators and non-legislators to draw up congressional maps that are then presented to the legislature for a vote. The word is a combination of the words Gerry, for the state's governor, Elbridge Gerry, and salamander, as a particular electoral district was jokingly said to be shaped like a lizard. Imagine a geographical grid of one hundred voters with their political ideologies represented by the colors, blue and red. The term "gerrymandering" was coined by a review of Massachusetts's redistricting maps of 1812 set by Governor Elbridge Gerry that was named because one of the districts looked like a salamander. 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 voter’s 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. One of the unique things about Gill v. Whitford is that, unlike many other gerrymandering cases, the Wisconsin Assembly districts do not have bizarre shapes. The law consolidated the Federalist Party vote in a few districts and thus gave disproportionate representation to Democratic-Republicans. Go check out examples of political jargon. Gerrymandering is the process of drawing congressional districts in a way that favors one political party or interest group. Attempts to gerrymander happen only once a decade and soon after years ending in a zero. Six states use advisory commissions to draw state legislative districts. And it creates districts of voters who are socioeconomically, racially or politically alike so that members of Congress are safe from potential challengers and, as a result, have little reason to compromise with their colleagues from the other party. The U.S. Supreme Court, ruling in 1964, called for a fair and equitable distribution of voters among congressional districts, but its ruling dealt mostly with the actual number of voters in each and whether they were rural or urban, not the partisan or racial makeup of each: The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 took on the issue of using race as a factor in drawing congressional districts, saying it is illegal to deny minorities their constitutional right “to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.”. But the political impact is much more significant. To keep politics and the potential for gerrymandering out of the process, state lawmakers and public officials are prohibited from serving on the commissions. Gerrymandering, the practice of drawing districts to favor one political party, skews election results, makes races less competitive, hurts communities of color, and thwarts the will of the voters. Elbridge Gerry was a powerful voice in the founding of the nation, but today he’s best known for the political practice with an amphibious origin Redistricting is one of the most important processes in American politics. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. It leads many Americans to feel their voices don’t matter. Pointing to the rapid development and routine use of computer-assisted districting, he argued that such technologies “may produce new methods of analysis that…would facilitate court efforts to identify and remedy the burdens” imposed by political gerrymanders, “with judicial intervention limited by the derived standards.”. In that case, the plaintiffs argued that the discriminatory effects of the redistricting plan could be measured objectively by comparing the “efficiency” of votes cast for Republican or Democratic candidates in state legislative elections since 2012. "The process is marked by secrecy, self-dealing and backroom logrolling among elected officials. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. In the 2012 congressional elections, for example, Republicans won 53 percent of the popular vote but carried three out of four House seats in states where they oversaw redistricting. There the Court’s conservative majority, over the bitter objections of its more liberal members, declared (5–4) that “partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.”. Gerrymandering is the act of drawing congressional, state legislative or other political boundaries to favor a political party or one particular candidate for elected office. The Impact of Partisan Gerrymandering By Alex Tausanovitch October 1, 2019, 9:01 am Once a decade, every state redraws its electoral districts, determining which … Gerrymandering is the act of redrawing the lines of a congressional district to give one political party a voting advantage over another. Both major political parties are responsible for the misshapen legislative and congressional districts in the United States. Gerrymandering is the act of drawing congressional, state legislative or other political boundaries to favor a political party or one particular candidate for elected office. "Gerrymandering is not hard," Sam Wang, the founder of Princeton University's Election Consortium, wrote in 2012. Racial gerrymandering…, …suppression is racial or partisan gerrymandering (the drawing of electoral districts by state legislatures in such a way as to dilute the voting power of members of a certain racial group or political party), though it does not specifically prevent any person from voting or registering to vote. Learn more. Gerrymandering didn't save Elbridge Gerry's governorship, but it established itself as, if not the most partisan or fair strategy, a viable one for electoral victory. While these states take redistricting out of the hands of the entire legislature, the process is highly political, or partisan, and often results in gerrymandering districts. Where Did the Term “Gerrymander” Come From? A district or configuration of districts whose boundaries are very irregular due to gerrymandering. The physical impact of gerrymandering can be seen on any map of congressional districts. Hakeem Jeffries is a classic example of political gerrymandering, what happened to him? His subject areas include philosophy, law, social science, politics, political theory, and religion. Apportionment and gerrymandering. In 1963, in Gray v. Sanders, the Court first articulated the principle of “one person, one vote” in striking down Georgia’s county-based system for counting votes in Democratic primary elections for the office of U.S. senator. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, whose administration enacted a law in 1812 defining new state senatorial districts. But not all. …must not be confused with gerrymandering—a form of arbitrary districting used to benefit the party that at a given time controls the apportionment process. The Supreme Court followed up in 2015 by saying states could form independent, nonpartisan commissions to redraw legislative and congressional boundaries. Redistricting must be completed in time for the 2012 elections. The purpose of gerrymandering is to grant one party power over another by creating districts that hold dense concentrations of voters who are favorable to their policies. 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. The term is derived from the name of Gov. The origin of the term gerrymander dates back to the early 1800s in Massachusetts. [After Elbridge Gerry + (sala)mander (from the shape of an election district created while Gerry was governor of Massachusetts).] Omissions? The law was designed to end discrimination against black Americans, particularly those in the South after the Civil War. You may have heard about this in the news, but how is it affecting you? ThoughtCo uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. Gerrymandering is when a political group tries to change a voting district to create a result that helps them or hurts the group who is against them. Gerrymandering is the practice of dividing election districts to give special advantages to one group and usually to give one political party an electoral majority in a large number of districts while concentrating the opposition’s voting strength in the fewest districts possible. 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. Gerrymandering is used to give the majority party the greatest number of districts that they can reasonably win and the minority party the fewest number of safe districts. Some redistricting commissions are expected to resist political influence and act independently from the parties and the elected officials in that state. Until the 1980s, disputes regarding political gerrymandering were generally considered nonjusticiable (not decidable by federal courts) on the presumption that they presented “political questions” that are properly decided by the legislative or the executive branch. partisan. The outline of one of these districts was thought to resemble a salamander. Politics is full of all different types of moves and manipulation to win. One year later, in Wesberry v. Sanders, the Court declared that congressional electoral districts must be drawn in such a way that, “as nearly as is practicable, one man’s vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s.” And in the same year, the Court affirmed, in Reynolds v. Sims, that “the Equal Protection Clause requires that the seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned on a population basis.”. By using ThoughtCo, you accept our, How the Votes Are Counted on Election Day, Why Puerto Rico Matters in the US Presidential Election, 15th Amendment Grants Voting Rights to Black American Men, Black Women Who Have Run for President of the United States, How the US Electoral College System Works, How Vacancies in the US Congress are Filled, All the Women Who Have Run for President of the US, to favor a political party or one particular candidate for elected office, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, based on the decennial census every 10 years, North Dakota (Legislative districts only), South Dakota (Legislative districts only), Pennsylvania (Legislative districts only). The way congressional and legislative boundaries are drawn determines who wins federal and state elections, and ultimately which political party holds the power in making crucial policy decisions. A satirical cartoon by Elkanah Tisdale that appeared in the Boston Gazette graphically transformed the districts into a fabulous animal, “The Gerry-mander,” fixing the term in the popular imagination. Gerrymandering reduces the number of competitive congressional races across the United States by segregating like-minded voters from each other. Countries such as the U.K., Australia, Canada and most of those in Europe have transferred responsibility for defining constituency boundaries to neutral or cross-party bodies. Favoring one political party at the expense of another. …rights is racial or partisan gerrymandering. Due to the perceived issues associated with gerrymandering and its effect on competitive elections and democratic accountability, numerous countries have enacted reforms making the practice either more difficult or less effective. “The Gerry-mander,” political cartoon by Elkanah Tisdale. Interested in finding out more uniquely political concepts? Here's what you need to know about gerrymandering, the word you're hearing so much about today. Gerrymandering in the United States has been used to increase the power of a political party. A more rigorous definition of gerrymandering. The project, orchestrated by Republicans using sophisticated software and about $30 million, was called REDMAP, for Redistricting Majority Project. The 10 states that use politician commissions are: The term gerrymander is derived from the name of a Massachusetts governor in the early 1800s, Elbridge Gerry. Norton explained the emergence of the epithet "gerrymander" this way: The late William Safire, a political columnist and linguist for The New York Times, made note of the word's pronunciation in his 1968 book Safire's New Political Dictionary: Tom Murse is a former political reporter and current Managing Editor of daily paper "LNP," and weekly political paper "The Caucus," both published by LNP Media in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Although it does not prevent any person from voting or registering to vote, gerrymandering ensures that a targeted minority group or political party will be permanently underrepresented in a state legislature or in Congress relative to its absolute numbers in the state. Gerrymandering Gerrymandering; Gerrymandering Definition. In Spain, they are constitutionally fixed since 1978. Instead, the justices held unanimously (9–0) that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue, and the case was remanded (7–2) to the district court for further argument. He was running to represent his district and perceived to be a threat by the current district chair and effectively cut out of his district through gerrymandering preventing him from being able to represent that district. The redistricting process begins soon after the U.S. Census Bureau completes its work and begins sending data back to the states. Gerrymandering, in U.S. politics, the practice of drawing the boundaries of electoral districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage over its rivals (political or partisan gerrymandering) or that dilutes the voting power of members of ethnic or linguistic minority groups (racial gerrymandering). Some states impanel special commissions. Technically, gerrymandering is illegal, but it’s hard to prove. 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. "A state may take race into account as one of several factors when drawing district lines—but without a compelling reason, race cannot be the 'predominant' reason for a district’s shape," according to the Brennan Center for Justice. What is gerrymandering? By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Gerrymander definition is - the act or method of gerrymandering. By “packing”…. Gerrymandering -- drawing political boundaries to give your party a numeric advantage over an opposing party -- is a difficult process to explain. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. It is a way that governing parties try to cement themselves in power by tilting the political map steeply in their favor. 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”). Gerrymandering is the act of altering political boundaries in order to give an unfair advantage to one political party or group of people. Some states also prohibit legislative staffers and lobbyists, as well. Many boundaries zig and zag east and west, north and south across city, township and county lines as if for no reason at all. gerrymandering and the constitutional norm against government partisanship Holder views gerrymandering , which manipulates district lines to benefit one party, as part of a broader struggle for voting rights, since it effectively diminishes the value of certain communities' votes. The division of districts to produce either fair or gerrymandered results. Political gerrymandering characteristically results in a greater number of “wasted” votes for the disfavoured party (i.e., votes for a losing candidate or votes for a winning candidate in excess of the number needed to win), a discrepancy that can be represented as an “efficiency gap” between the parties when the difference between wasted votes is divided by the total number of votes cast. 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