Brian Howey has a good column entitled HOWEY: Gerrymandering prolongs lack of fair representation. He’s quick to point out that it’s a bipartisan enterprise, but this cycle gerrymandering seems to be advantage: Republican. Nationally, they received 1% fewer votes than the Democrats but won 54% of the House seats. In the state, they took 54% of the vote but 69% of the House seats.
This go-round, Republicans are making soothing sounds about how redistricting should take place, but you can be reasonably sure nothing will happen. Democrats are probably a little more earnest about a non-partisan redistricting plan simply because they’re on the losing end of it. My guess is that Libertarians, if asked, would give you an earful about electoral reforms that need to happen; gerrymandering being only one.
The problem is that structurally, the people who have to agree to the changes are the people who (in the short term anyway) necessarily have benefited from the status quo.
The only way significant changes are likely to be made is if it gets attention and a critical mass from below among the people.
A study of history provides many examples of the “use” of gerrymandering to achieve a goal besides those written into law. While doubtful that a concept of seeking a truly democratic (small “d”) outcome is very unlikely it would be a great achievement.
I had been under the impression that the U.S. Supreme Court considered partisam political gerrymandering to be non-justiciable as a “political question”, meaning that the courts were to keep their nose out of a legislative issue. Turns out in trying to confirm this after reading your synopsis and Howey’s piece, I was wrong. And one of the major cases is one concerning the Indiana General Assembly. In Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109 (1986), SCOTUS affirmed that political gerrymandering presented a legal question the courts were entitlted to deal with, but seemed to set very high standards of proof for challangers to overcome, and the Court seems to to be able to decide precisely what the standards are in any given case.
Don,
I too believed that political gerrymandering was a no-justiciable political issue. Thanks for the update.
But for a timely look back, Wikipedia reported that today is the 201st annniversary of Gov. Gerry’s Gerrymandering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering
Carlito: Is there a Latin word equivalent to “gerrymandering”? I understand there is some of that associated with the way the College of Cardinals is constituted, suddenly the topic du jour. I suppose we won’t know for sure until the (white) smoke clears.
I’m not sure that 54% of the voters getting 69% of the seats in the Gen. Ass. promotes the concept of “one man, one vote” very well. I’d like to see this litigated.