Gerrymandering

 

Gerrymandering or Geography?

By Patrick Fero

Our Republican Committee recently published a list of nine states where every congressional seat is held by Democrats: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii, and Delaware.

But wait a minute, here’s what you find if you look at the other side of that coin: Twelve states have no Democrats in their seats: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, Utah, Nebraska, Idaho, Montana, West Virginia, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming.

Furthermore, Kentucky, Kansas, Mississippi and South Carolina have two Republican Senators, but a single Democratic House member.

What’s going on?

Well, citizens have been moving around the country at an increasing rate in recent decades—predominantly from the North and East to the South and West. In recent years, people have also begun sorting themselves by political affinity. Blue states like California and New York are losing population—and potential Electoral College votes—to states like Texas and Florida. Some analysts argue that states welcoming high numbers of immigrants, regardless of legal status, are doing so to cushion against these emigration losses ahead of the 2030 Census.

While gerrymandering is a factor, so is geographic self-sorting. Compounding this is our first-past-the-post (winner-take-all) voting system. It is a stark mathematical reality of this system that a party can win a large percentage of a state’s overall vote but end up with zero congressional representation.

When voters of a minority party are geographically spread out, they are easily overwhelmed in every single district. Conversely, when a minority group is heavily concentrated in specific regions, they have a distinct advantage. For geographically dispersed groups, it is virtually impossible to draw a safe district without resorting to bizarre, extremely distorted boundary lines.

So, what is to be done about it, if anything?

States now often draw district lines to conform to some political desire. Absent politics, the lines would simply be drawn as prescribed: using traditional, fair-mapping principles such as compactness, contiguity, and respect for existing political boundaries (keeping counties and municipalities whole).

Pennsylvania is a fascinating case study. As a premier 'purple' swing state with a nearly 50/50 voter split, the way its district lines are drawn entirely dictates the balance of power. Because the state's population naturally clusters Democrats in urban/suburban hubs and spreads Republicans across rural expanses, applying neutral mapping rules would naturally correct political distortions.

We could maintain stable, neutral districts and simply let the population shift naturally within them. But politicians have found it is much quicker to bring the district to the voter. Don’t expect that to change anytime soon.