Читать книгу Gerrymandering - Stephen K. Medvic - Страница 10

In the chapters that follow, we will examine gerrymandering in far greater detail. Chapter 2 traces the development and evolution of gerrymandering over time. Gerrymandering dates to the early nineteenth century, though there are examples to be found in the American Colonial period. Initially, legislative districts were coterminous with city, town, or county boundaries. However, politicians eventually realized that they could create electoral districts for partisan advantage by combining jurisdictions in whole or in part. Prior to the ‘reapportionment revolution’ of the 1960s, which will be discussed in detail in chapter 3, legislative districts were not required to have an equal number of people in them. Malapportionment meant that rural areas had far more representation than urban areas but also that the drawing of district lines could be done relatively haphazardly. In addition, those drawing district lines before the 1960s did not have access to computers for use in the process. Thus, after the 1960s, when districts had to contain an equal number of people and, eventually, when technology could be employed to identify voters at the household level, gerrymandering became far more precise.

Chapter 3 reviews the fate of gerrymandering in the courts. It begins by describing the ‘reapportionment revolution’ of the 1960s, which prohibited malapportionment of legislative districts and established the principle of “one-person, one-vote,” or equality of representation. To realize this ideal, legislative districts within states must contain equal populations (or as close to equal as possible). In the years following the reapportionment revolution, the courts and Congress turned attention to the potential for gerrymandered districts to dilute the votes of racial minorities and/or partisans. The creation of ‘majority-minority’ districts was an attempt to address the former but often reduced partisan competition in the process. The most recent legal battles over gerrymandering concern partisan bias in district maps. These battles, as we’ll see, have been won by those defending the practice of partisan gerrymandering.

Chapter 4 begins by providing a more detailed account of the normal redistricting process. It then describes how partisan majorities gerrymander districts for electoral advantage. They do this either by placing as many supporters of the other party as possible into a minimal number of districts, thereby concentrating their voting strength (‘packing’) or by spreading supporters of the other party throughout many districts, thereby diluting their voting power (‘cracking’). The chapter will illustrate these tactics with hypothetical and real-world examples. It will also discuss the use of computer technology in the redistricting/gerrymandering process.

The consequences of redistricting and gerrymandering will be explored in chapter 5. The primary focus will be on the effect of redistricting on candidates and parties, including its influence on the level of competition, partisan advantage, and the incumbency advantage. Redistricting may also affect voters directly, so the chapter considers its impact on voter turnout and vote choice. Finally, gerrymandering is often blamed for increasing levels of polarization. The chapter concludes with a look at the evidence with respect to this claim. In many of these areas, the scholarly research comes to contradictory conclusions and, in general, the results are mixed in terms of whether gerrymandering has significant consequences on elections.

The final chapter of the book will begin with a review of the normative arguments for and against gerrymandering and will make a case for reform of the process. It will then consider several ideas for reforming the redistricting process to eliminate, or constrain, gerrymandering. The most prominent idea is the use of redistricting commissions. Such commissions, which draft district boundaries and are populated by persons who may or may not be elected officials, vary in their independence from legislators. The most radical reform proposal to be considered is the use of multimember districts with proportional election rules. Moving to such an electoral system would greatly reduce the need for redistricting and would more fairly represent the partisan preferences of the electorate.