Texas is getting blamed for igniting the gerrymandering wars. Virginia fired the latest salvo after residents voted to realign Congressional districts. Others states are joining the fray. The political tug-of-war matters because the midterm elections this fall will determine which party controls the House.
News media reports, as you might expect, are missing context. Accounts often portray the drawing of congressional maps as a non-partisan exercise, corrupted by Texas and President Trump. Some media deceitfully claim it's a new phenomenon foisted on the country by diabolical Republicans.
In fact, gerrymandering is as old as America. The first congressional map, hammered out in 1788, the so-called anti-Federalists in Virginia jiggered the district to pit their candidate James Monroe against the incumbent James Madison. The maneuver failed as Madison was reelected.
The term gerrymandering was coined in 1812 by the Boston Gazette after Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts championed a bill that manipulated the boundaries of state electoral districts to give his party, Democrat-Republicans, what was considered an unfair political advantage.
(It's ironic that the Democratic-Republican party--the same two parties duking it out over maps today--was the beneficiary. The party was formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in 1792. They called themselves "Republicans" in a nod to their ideology. Federalists were the opposition party.)
After Governor Gerry signed the redistricting bill, the Boston Gazette referred to the resulting map as a Gerry-mander, because the contorted district in the Boston area resembled the shape of a mythological salamander. Thus the moniker became a disreputable term for partisan redistricting.
Gerrymandering has whipsawed American politics for more than 200 years. The earliest battles were over statewide Congressional elections versus specific districts. Some states, such as Pennsylvania, held at-large elections for representatives. Others, mixed district and at-large-systems.
This hodgepodge was common as the political parties jockeyed for power. The result was a high turnover among congressional delegations, a far cry from today's entrenched incumbency. It wasn't until 1842 when Congress approved legislation mandating single member districts.
Despite the new law, some Democrat controlled states refused to comply with mandate. The election of 1846 changed everything after the Democrats endured an electoral shellacking. Democrat states fell in line after that and single member districts became the political pro forma for electing representatives.
The decree for single-member districts was bolstered by the passage of the Uniform Congressional Districting Act of 1967. The groundwork for the law was laid by two Supreme Court decisions as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The justices ruled in 1962 that federal courts could weigh in on the redistricting maps. Then in a 1964 case, SCOTUS established the principle of one-person, one vote. That opinion compelled states to redraw House district boundaries to ensure equal population in each district.
The judicial rulings sparked the great reapportionment. For Democrats in non-Southern states, the legal decisions were a gift. Since Democrats were dominant in urban cities, they carved out districts that could be won by a black candidate, cementing the relationship between the party and this constituency.
The reappointment revolution also ushered in a sustained period of Democrat Party control of the House of Representatives. It took Republicans 40 years to win control of the lower chamber in 1994. Democrats contend gerrymandering had nothing to do with their decades of dominance.
With their newfound majority, the GOP launched an effort in 2010 to gain control of state legislatures, which are charged with drawing the House district maps. At the time, Democrats controlled 27 state legislatures and eight were split. Democrats held 60 of the 100 chambers of state legislatures.
Following the 2010 state elections, Republicans seized control of 25 state legislatures. Democrat controlled legislatures plummeted to 16 with nine states split. Prior to the Republican sweep, Democrats had at least a 2-to-1 advantage in redistricting authority for the previous 40 years.
In recent years, some states, in an effort to tamp down flaming partisanship, have established independent commissions to draft maps while a handful have created so-called advisory councils. However, the state legislators have the final authority to override the advisory groups.
Even independent commissions can be ditched. California in 2008 put redistricting in the hands of an "impartial" commission. But the state's voters recently passed a proposition to "temporarily" redesign the House districts, potentially adding five Democrat seats. SCOTUS upheld the move in February.
The ink was barely dry on the court's decision when the justices struck down a Louisiana map, ruling that it was unconstitutional to gerrymander on the basis of race. Louisiana's 2024 Congressional map included two majority black districts.
Toss in the political stew the disregard for waiting until the decennial census to redraw maps. Virginia, California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Utah have rejiggered district maps ahead of the 2030 census. Mid-decade redistricting is neither prohibited by the Constitution nor federal law.
Whether it's gerrymandering or just the voters' preference for a single party, there currently are 19 states with a one-party House delegation--7 Democrat controlled and 12 dominated by the GOP. After this latest round of gerrymandering, those numbers will only increase.
Open hostilities between the two parties stoking the Gerrymandering Wars, raise the question: What's best for America? Should redistricting be restricted to every 10 years with the census? Should every state agreed to use a neutral commission to draw maps? Should Congress pass guidelines?
With a politically polarized nation, it might be wishful thinking to hope for a solution. As it stands, the number of competitive House races shrinks every year. Incumbency has been institutionalized. The average member is 57.5 years old and the average tenure is a tick more than four terms (8.6 years).
Gerrymandering may have less to do with the makeup of the House than the partisan nature of states. There is a reason Red and Blue colors have been assigned to most states with a few purples. The Constitution, the Courts and Legislatures appear to be of the same mind. Let the states draw maps.
The only change likely will be no change.
No comments:
Post a Comment