It's becoming a fairly common refrain these days that the extreme political dysfunction in the US Congress is primarily caused by gerrymandering. I've seen it in the NY Times, the Economist, and elsewhere, but I'm not entirely sure how many people are really aware of it yet.
Just a quick run-through: every 10 years, new lines have to be drawn on every state map to determine which voters will belong to which district. This is called redistricting. This is done to balance out shifts, increases, or decreases in the populations of each district. Gerrymandering is when a certain political party draws the the lines of the voting districts to their own advantage. For example, Republicans might draw the lines so that all the largely Republican communities will fall in one district, therefore making that a "safe" district--a.k.a. a district in which a Democrat has no chance of winning. A Democrat would do the same thing with Democratic communities. That's how you end up with districts that look like this:
Ridiculous, no?
Okay, it might look ridiculous on paper, but why is this really such a big deal? I mean, everyone's votes are still being represented right? What difference does it really make?
The difference is this: when districts are gerrymandered so that they're overwhelmingly conservative or overwhelmingly liberal, you end up electing extremely conservative or extremely liberal politicians. Politicians from these districts don't need to win over the "moderates" and the "swing voters"--they only need to seriously compete with other members of their own party in the primaries. Once that vote is secured, it's easy sailing for them in the main election. In order to secure their jobs, they only have to toe the party line. If they compromise with the other party, they're likely to lose support in the district that elected them. When being moderate is a threat to their personal job security, it's in their best interest to stick to extremes. That's exactly what we have in our Congress right now. How can we expect these politicians to compromise when doing so would lose them the next election? This is how our Congress can have one of its lowest approval ratings in history (between 5 and 10%, depending on which polls you look at), and yet most of the extremist politicians who are causing the current grid-lock are in no real danger of losing their jobs in the next election. Our current political system seriously discourages compromise and makes it almost impossible to put moderate politicians in office. Getting rid of gerrymandering could undo many of the problems that are paralyzing our country.
But what exactly are the rules that govern redistricting? Under what circumstances is gerrymandering allowed? Are there limits on it? And who decides who gets to draw the lines anyways?
I decided to look into it a little more myself, and I found this fabulous little website:
All About Redistricting: Professor Justin Levitt's guide to drawing the electoral lines
It's chock full of all the basic info about gerrymandering. Here's the short version:
There are only two federal laws that relate to gerrymandering.
1) Each district must be roughly equal in population. The exact rules on what constitutes "roughly equal" vary from state to state.
2) Gerrymandering cannot be used to break up minorities into different districts so that their share of the vote in each district becomes insignificant. On the flipside, "packing" as many minorities as possible into as few districts as possible is also illegal.
(For a fuller explanation on this, see here).
In short, you cannot gerrymander with minority groups, but you can gerrymander with political parties all you want.
Aside from these two federal laws, redistricting laws are entirely up to each state.
In this part of the website you can look up the exact laws about redistricting, state by state.
All About Redistricting - Who Draws the Lines?
For congressional (a.k.a., for the Federal legislature, rather than State legislature) redistricting is done basically one of three ways. The lines can be drawn by :
1) an independent commission of non-politicians
2) a bipartisan commission of state politicians
3) the state legislature, which then votes on whether or not to pass the new district maps. In most states, this vote requires only a simple majority (over 50%) in order to pass.
Currently, 2 states (Hawaii and New Jersey) use an independent commission. 4 states (Arizona, California, Idaho, and Washington) use a bipartisan commission. 7 states (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North & South Dakota, Wyoming, and Vermont) do not need to draw congressional districts because they only have one Representative in the House.
That leaves 37 states where redistricting is done either primarily
or entirely by the state legislature. That means that whichever party controls the state legislature has complete control
over the way congressional districts are drawn. Obviously, this is not good for creating fair district maps.
An article from Dec. 14, 2012, in the New
York Times explains:
“In states
where Republicans controlled the [redistricting] process, […] their candidates
won roughly 53 percent of the vote—and 72 percent of the seats. And in the
states where Democrats controlled the process, their candidates won about 56
percent of the vote and 71 percent of the seats.
An analysis
by The New York Times of states where courts, commissions or divided
governments drew the maps found a much smaller disparity between the share of
the popular vote and the number of seats won in Congress.”
In other words, not only does gerrymandering lead to an increased tendency to elect extreme right- or left-wing politicians, but also a gross disparity between the number of actual votes
won vs. the number of seats won by either party.
The House of Representatives is supposed to be the federal
institution which most accurately reflects the will, constitution, and
diversity of the people. With our
current system, it does not. As long as
gerrymandering continues, there will be very little chance of electing more
moderate candidates or honoring the popular vote in each state. The U.S. government will be thrown into
paralysis again and again, and the world will wonder why the most powerful
country on earth can’t accomplish even the most basic things to keep the itself
running.
Unfortunately, this is not an issue that can be resolved at the federal level. The passage of a federal ban on gerrymandering is basically impossible since many of the legislators themselves would lose their jobs if it
passes. This issue must be dealt with state by state. Even that will be extremely difficult since our state legislators probably rely on gerrymandered districts to secure their own jobs. However, 6 states already use independent or bipartisan commissions to do their redistricting. That proves it can be done. We need more states to do this. The power of redistricting must be taken out of the hands of our state legislatures.
The Petition
I've started a petition to the Governor and State Legislature of Illinois to end gerrymandering by appointing an independent or bipartisan commission for redistricting. Anyone who lives or votes in Illinois, I ask you to please sign this and pass it on to as many people as you can. To people who live in other states, I encourage you to start petitions of your own, start raising awareness of this issue, and try to end gerrymandering in your own state. Please do what you can, even if it's only a little. Gerrymandering is eating away at the very heart of our democracy. The ineptitude of our government is harming everyone, and if we want our country to remain strong, democratic, and fair, we have to do something about this.
Click here to see my Petition to End Gerrymandering in Illinois
Sources of inspiration for this post:
The GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN and REPEATED DEBT CEILING CRISES
All About Redistricting: Professor Justin Levitt's guide to drawing the electoral lines
"How the Shutdown Plays in Peoria" - The Economist, Oct. 12, 2013
(An article from a British newspaper that, coincidentally, specifically talks about gerrymandering in Illinois)
"How Maps Helped Republicans Keep an Edge in the House" - The New York Times, Dec. 14, 2012
