ROUGH DRAFT V1

How does a party that routinely receives a minority of the vote share continue to retain power? Gerrymandering the States shows how the exploitation of redistricting, a low salience element of American politics, raises a serious threat to democracy. Gerrymandering is the strategic drawing of electoral districts to give partisan advantage to the mapmakers. This process presents a serious threat to democracy and can deny equal access to the vote. This book shows that redistricting maps drawn in 2010–2011 (following the 2010 decennial Census) and used in subsequent elections introduced severe partisan bias into the electoral system. This bias overwhelmingly favors the Republican Party, giving them an “advantage in state government so extreme that the average state legislative plan gives Republicans about 9 percent more seats than Democrats for the same share of the vote.” (p. 185). In the subsequent decade, gerrymandering allowed states to slowly undo Voting Rights Act provisions and deny democratic representation to citizens.

The authors demonstrate precisely how political actors use their tools to accomplish their primary goal—electoral victory. If there is a motive and an opportunity to create a competitive edge, political actors take it. Partisan control of redistricting efforts routinely results in partisan bias, brought about by maps that give more seats to one party over the other for the same number of votes. While geography and political demographics play a role in creating bias, it is not inevitable. Tainted maps are always a deliberate choice by the cartographer(s). That said, the potential for bias is not equal for both parties. Democrats tend to live in urban areas, and this demographic clustering limits the degree to which biased maps can be drawn in their favor. The gerrymandering process favors the rural and dispersed nature of the Republican voters, and the Republican successes in drawing maps are structural in nature.

This work is not just an explanation of the causes of gerrymandering but also an accounting of its effects. Gerrymandered maps diminish the value of votes on partisan and racial lines, preventing historically disenfranchised groups from participating in the political process and leading to distrust and cynicism. In addition to this, the Republican Party has used their manufactured advantage to forward policy that increases the cost of voting and diverts money away from public health initiatives, including COVID-19 preparedness. As the authors state, partisan gerrymandering is a fundamental assault on the principle of democracy. It mutes the people’s will in favor of that of the oligarchy that controls the redistricting process, and the effects go beyond the ballot box to the physical well-being of the population.

This book contains an impressive collection of data that includes over 99 state legislative chambers. The authors are primarily concerned with partisan composition of chambers before and after 2011. However, the back end of the book also contains a wealth of court-related data to bolster their claims. Their primary measurement is partisan symmetry, a function of seats obtained relative to the number of votes received. The concept of partisan symmetry requires that the districting system does not advantage either party or that both parties are to receive the same number of seats should they reach the same percentage of the vote. Their actual measurement relays the degree to which this does not occur, or how many more seats party A gets for X percent of the vote, compared to party B at the same amount. The biggest strengths of this measure lie in its simplicity and how well it conveys itself through visuals. Plotting the bias measurement immediately confers what is occurring; it is either symmetrical and fair or asymmetrical and biased.

Chapter 7 raises the most critical point of this work. Faith in democracy is declining, and gerrymandering and electoral mismanagement are at the heart of the problem. Ironically, many in academia and the public sphere place the security of the democratic process at the feet of the Supreme Court, which has, in actuality, been the architect of its decline over the past 20 years. The authors conclude that the inter-relatedness of American politics, contrary to Justice Scalia’s assertion that gerrymandering’s effects are limited to the district in which they occur, means that gerrymandering is everyone’s problem. Its effects bleed into every other aspect of government and give certain actors disproportionate power at the federal level.

The conclusion addresses potential solutions to gerrymandering. The authors suggest courts are not the ideal source of reform efforts, with previous attempts ending in, at best, preserving the status quo. Judges are often minimalistic in their approach, and they tend to be skeptical of any mathematical approaches to election law that might mitigate the effects of bias. The authors suggest that the best bet for procedural reform comes from changing the nature of the mapmaking process to one where citizens and non-partisan actors are in control. These are the only reliable ways of moving the needle towards symmetrical mapmaking, as even bipartisan commissions tend to preserve the status quo, which is already heavily biased towards Republicans.

Gerrymandering presents a compelling story, but it is not without its weaknesses. The optimism at the ability of the citizenry to help adjudicate this issue and create bias-free districts is somewhat at odds with the current literature on American political behavior. Given the limited attention spans and conflicting goals of the average American, it is likely that only the most partisan of individuals will choose to serve on these committees. Can it be said that they will faithfully preserve the democratic process? As we know from the direct democracy literature, more citizen involvement does not guarantee more equitable policy outcomes. All that said, the results do demonstrate that these citizen commissions draw more equitable maps relative to traditional, legislatively driven processes. Their solution is undoubtedly the lesser of two evils in that respect. There was also an opportunity to link this work to the literature on primary elections that might have been missed. Gerrymandering has contributed to the lack of competition in general elections, which has created more competitive primaries that have allowed for the rise of more extreme candidates.

Gerrymandering the States is a textbook example of using the states as cases to answer some of the biggest questions in contemporary political science. Any scholar who works on elections, voting, or state politics at large should be aware of this work. Beyond their excellent scholarship and impressive data collection effort, there is a compelling normative case regarding one of the United States’ most concerning political issues. The very notion of one person, one vote is under siege by the strategic efforts of partisan actors. The authors relay this assault on the foundation of modern democracy with the gravity it deserves, explaining how, when, and why contemporary redistricting has eroded our democratic institutions and the public’s faith in them. Any effort to restore and preserve democracy for scholars and activists alike should start here.