OUTLAW
GERRYMANDERING:
SEVEN
WAYS TO ABOLISH DISTORTED DISTRICTS
In
democracy, the voters select their representatives.
Under gerrymandering, the 'representatives' select their voters.
SYNOPSIS:
Gerrymandering is the political process of creating
electoral districts
to favor one's own political party or ethnic group.
Because politicians have drawn these boundaries for
elections,
they can be re-drawn by more enlightened and less-partisan lawmakers,
to create new districts that will be fair to all candidates and voters.
And if politicians are not willing or able to
re-draw the lines,
then special commissions or even judges might be required
to re-establish the principle of making every vote count.
OUTLINE:
CONGRESSIONAL
GRIDLOCK CREATED BY GERRYMANDERING.
1.
SHAMING LEGISLATORS INTO CORRECTING DISTORTED DISTRICTS.
2.
NON-PARTISAN COMMISSIONS CAN RE-DRAW THE BOUNDARIES.
3.
JUDGES CAN RE-DRAW THE DISTRICTS.
4. NEW FEDERAL LEGISLATION CAN OUTLAW GERRYMANDERING.
5. COMPUTERS CAN CREATE NEW LEGISLATIVE DISTRICTS.
6.
FEDERAL LAWSUITS CAN ELIMINATE GERRYMANDERED DISTRICTS.
7.
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS TO GUARD AGAINST GERRYMANDERING.
8. RACIAL AND ETHNIC GERRYMANDERING.
THE
UNITED STATES AFTER THE END OF GERRYMANDERING.
OUTLAW
GERRYMANDERING:
SEVEN
WAYS TO ABOLISH DISTORTED DISTRICTS
by
James Leonard Park
In the United States of America, it is impossible to
distort Senate
districts,
because each district for a U.S. Senator is a whole state.
The well-established state boundaries define
exactly who can vote for each Senate seat in the next election for
Senator.
However, the Congressional Districts within each
state
are usually set by the legislators of that state.
And in some cases, they have been extremely partisan
in deciding just where to draw the lines for electing U.S.
Representatives.
Both major political parties in the USA have been
guilty of gerrymandering.
And sometimes they collude
with each other in re-districting:
Each party allows the other to design 'safe' districts,
where only members of their own party are likely to be elected
as long as the other party can also draw lines that favor their
candidates.
CONGRESSIONAL GRIDLOCK CREATED BY
GERRYMANDERING.
Wherever 'safe' election districts have been
created,
then one party has a 'lock' on that seat.
When the lines have been drawn to disenfranchise the other party,
the dominant party in that district knows ahead of time
that only candidates from that party will ever be elected.
This makes the primary election (if there is one)
the only voting that will make any difference.
And the most committed members of that party are the primary voters.
When one area is known as a 'single-party
district',
candidates can ignore the wishes of the other party
and campaign only among voters of their own persuasion.
This tends to eliminate moderate candidates,
who pay attention to the voters of the other party.
Thus, sometimes the most
extreme candidates
of either party are elected from 'safe' districts.
In a one-party district, it is easy to know how to
get votes:
appeal to the most extreme ideological positions of that party.
This will get the most committed voters of that persuasion to the
polls.
And all the regular voters will vote for their
party.
But when extremists of either major party get into
the U.S. House,
they, of course, cannot agree with the other party on anything.
They were elected because of their commitment to extreme positions.
No compromises were required to get elected.
So they pledge to maintain their hard-line when in Congress.
However, the other party has also elected its most
extreme members.
They also pledge never to agree with the hated opposition party.
Whenever a new issue comes before them,
they ask first how their own
party is voting on that matter.
And sometimes free-thinkers are punished
if they ever vote with the opposition.
They will not get desirable committee assignments, for example,
unless they vote as directed by the party leaders.
Is it any surprise, then, given the way these
Representatives were elected
that they cannot pass any new legislation?
The U.S. House of Representatives has become unrepresentative.
Gerrymandered districts have selected only super-partisans.
They have no inclination to
compromise with anyone.
And their voting-base keeps sending them back to Congress
because they keep espousing their extreme political positions.
If Representatives took the views of
other parties into account,
they would be more willing to make the necessary compromises
needed to make the United States of America function well.
If they had to appeal to a broad
range of voters,
moderate Republicans, Democrats, & independents would be elected.
If the voters of any district were more evenly
divided,
then more centrist candidates would be elected.
And they would make decisions that are good for the whole country
rather than always voting the party line.
In short, if gerrymandering were ended, the U.S.
House of Representatives
would become more
representative of the whole electorate of the USA
—more
like the U.S. Senate,
which is elected strictly according to geographical boundaries.
1. SHAMING LEGISLATORS INTO
CORRECTING DISTORTED DISTRICTS.
Public records of how legislators voted
will show exactly who voted
to establish gerrymandered districts.
Some public-spirited individuals or groups can collect and publish this
data.
Some legislators will be able to show that 'everyone' voted for these
lines.
And this might be true in some states and smaller jurisdictions.
If 'everyone' voted for absurd districts, all candidates can be asked
if they will vote to correct
the distortions now in place.
When news reporters refer to any legislator in
office
who got there because of gerrymandering,
that can be added to the description of that person:
"Representative Far Out, from gerrymandered district #33,
voted for bill number 1234."
And this would be especially relevant if the bill in question
is really a special interest
measure,
which would not have passed
if only legislators voting in the public interest were in
office.
The reporter could include this in the story:
"Suspicions have been raised
that Representative Far Out voted for bill number 1234
because he was put into office largely as the result
of financial support from the Special Interest
that will make millions of dollars because of this new law."
If the news media continue to point out
that certain people are in office because of gerrymandering,
then the public will be aroused against that practice.
Because we want the United States of America
to become the best political
system on the planet Earth,
we will do our best at every level of government
to make our elections more open, fair, & free.
And this includes challenging the thinking
of any legislator who ever voted for a gerrymandered map.
Leaders of both political parties can join forces
to abolish the gerrymandering now in place
and replace the voting districts with new lines
that are obviously more fair and just than the political maps of the
past.
Arousing disrespect for legislators
who hold office only because of gerrymandering
will help to get rid of these super-partisan lawmakers.
And if they protest that they did not draw the maps that helped to
elect them,
we can challenge them to advocate
electoral reform
that will change the map back to reasonable election districts.
And those legislators who actually could be elected in a fair district
will be glad to gain the legitimacy
of having their district corrected
before they run for re-election.
2. NON-PARTISAN
COMMISSIONS CAN RE-DRAW THE BOUNDARIES.
Where legislators have not be able to agree
among themselves
about what new lines to create,
probably because they know too much about the voters in their own areas,
it has been possible to set up non-partisan
commissions
that apply only
legitimate factors in creating new voting
districts.
Legislators always favor lines that will keep them
in office,
but a commission can work without any knowledge of the old political
districts.
The farther they live from the places being re-districted, the better.
The commission should depend only on legitimate public facts about the
areas.
They should have no access
to any data about
voting patterns, racial make-up, or economic status of the voters.
The districts they draw will follow geographical and
political boundaries
that already exist independent of the political facts on the ground.
Usually the counties and cities of any state were created for valid
reasons.
As far as possible these given facts
of how units of government are already established
should dictate where voting lines should fall.
Once reasonable boundaries have been established by
such a commission,
then only minor changes will be needed to accommodate population
shifts.
3. JUDGES CAN RE-DRAW
THE DISTRICTS.
When legislators prove that they cannot create
reasonable districts,
perhaps because each legislator is subject to pressure from other
legislators,
then this task might be assigned to appropriate judges,
perhaps judges who live in a completely different state.
These judges could work from the well-established
facts:
population, county and city boundaries, rivers and mountains.
They would be isolated from
all lobbying interests,
who might be pushing for one kind of advantage or another.
Federal judges might become involved as the result
of a successful lawsuit
proving that the existing gerrymandered district lines do not provide
"equal protection of the laws" to the voters in those distorted
districts.
Perhaps some minority groups have been pushed together
even tho they live far apart in order to limit their power to elect
representatives.
Perhaps some cities have been cut up like a pie
so that the suburban voters will always have more votes
than the people living in the central cities.
Thus, city voters are never represented
because their votes have been divided among several districts.
In the most egregious cases of gerrymandering,
it should not be difficult to show that these lines were drawn
to favor some groups of voters over others.
Thus, those who suffer because of distorted districts
were not given the "equal protection of the laws".
And because changing one district always means
changing others as well,
the federal judges might end up changing
almost all of the legislative districts of a particular state.
Any state map that looks like spaghetti and meat-balls
should have all of its districts re-drawn
so that the new map looks more like the governmental sub-divisions
of any rationally-organized state.
Some states are already under federal supervision
with respect to changes in their voting regulations.
This was due to past obvious discrimination,
which might now be less pronounced.
But perhaps this federal legislation could be expanded
to cover all states—with
specific attention to gerrymandering.
A new federal law could outlaw distorted districts
wherever they exist or are proposed.
Bit-by-bit the old gerrymandered districts would be
abolished.
And whenever new lines are proposed,
the federal judges would have to check to see
if someone is trying to slip some new form of political advantage
into the proposed districts.
4. NEW FEDERAL
LEGISLATION CAN OUTLAW GERRYMANDERING.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed
to eliminate racist obstacles to voting in the South.
It does include provisions against racial gerrymandering.
Certain states were put under federal supervision concerning voting
rules.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (and as amended in
later years)
has been spectacularly successful in empowering everyone to vote.
Obstacles to registering and voting have disappeared.
The states originally under special supervision have protested.
And in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court
agreed that the data behind the original law
was out of date
and hence that until new facts are presented and put into federal law,
this provision for federal oversight of state election laws was no
longer valid.
The new data for the Voting Rights Act might reveal
gerrymandering.
Yes, everyone can vote, but in some locations
the political parties have created voting districts
that empower the parties
rather than the voters.
Who selects the candidates on the ballot?
Do opposition candidates really have a chance of being elected?
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 could be amended yet
again
to prohibit all
gerrymandering for racial or political advantage.
Or completely new legislation on the federal level
might be a more direct and focused way to outlaw gerrymandering.
States that still have outrageous gerrymandering
show no inclination to simplify their distorted districts.
And just as they cried "states' rights" in the
middle 1960s,
gerrymandered states will resist any federal attempts
to correct their
voting districts.
This new law might give the states one or two years
to re-draw their legislative districts.
And if they do not comply, federal election experts
will re-draw the districts for them.
Any such law would have to contain specific
definitions of gerrymandering.
But this should be relatively simple,
since we all know what a foolish district looks like on the map.
As much as possible,
new voting districts would follow county and
municipal boundaries.
The new districts would be geographically
compact,
without fingers of land expending into neighboring districts.
This new legislation should contain provisions
for challenging any lines—existing
or proposed.
Lawsuits would be heard in federal courts,
which would have the power to order the lines re-drawn
if they are found to be gerrymandered.
And this new federal law against gerrymandering
might include a permanent commission to examine all such claims.
States that have committed gerrymandering in the past
should be under special scrutiny
to make sure they do not revert to their old ways.
The results of abolishing gerrymandering everywhere
in the USA
might be as dramatic as the original Voting Rights Act of 1965.
More districts will become genuinely competitive.
The voters will have real choices among candidates.
And legislators will become more responsive to the will of the people.
5. COMPUTERS CAN CREATE
NEW LEGISLATIVE DISTRICTS.
Even better than establishing a committee to draw
new lines,
this task could be assigned to computers.
All sides would have to look at the data put into the computers
to make certain that no
impermissible factors have slipped in
either by accident or by design.
The computers would be told all of the facts about
how many people
live on each block of a city or on each square mile of the countryside.
The computers would be told the number of people for each voting
district.
For example, each U.S. Congressional District should have 700,000
people.
(Some states have populations so small they have only one
Representative.
These states will never have any redistricting problems for the U.S.
House.
Their one Representative is elected state-wide.)
The following facts should be explicitly EXCLUDED
from the data given to the re-districting computers:
(1) past voting patterns of any kind;
(2) racial or ethnic identity of the voters;
(3) how many of the voters were foreign-born.
Experts in demographics will have to watch out for factors
that are substitutes
for the impermissible political facts.
The computers should be instructed
to create the most
compact-possible voting districts.
One easy way to explain this to the computers
is to ask for districts that have the smallest possible circumference.
No weird shapes or elongated districts should be permitted.
Some human intervention will probably be necessary
to correct obvious errors created by blind computer-programs.
For example, rivers, mountains, and desserts can be taken into account.
But where the present legislators happen to live
should not be known
by the computers drawing new districts.
Voting districts should be defined only by total
population,
not by the political wishes of any individuals or parties.
6. FEDERAL LAWSUITS CAN
ELIMINATE GERRYMANDERED DISTRICTS.
Because gerrymandering violates the equal protection
of the laws
—including
any new legislation created to outlaw gerrymandering—
individuals and groups can go to the federal courts for relief.
If this district as drawn (or proposed) violates the voting rights of
any citizen,
the most appropriate federal court could hear the case
and perhaps order that the district lines be redrawn to correct the
problems.
After a few successful federal cases have changed
the distorted maps,
everyone who proposes new district lines will be on notice
that if they put their own political commitments before the rights of
the people,
their distorted districts will be challenged in federal court
—and
possibly overturned because the lines were not legitimate.
7. NATIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS TO GUARD AGAINST GERRYMANDERING.
Because the American people can be aroused against
all forms of political gamesmanship,
anti-gerrymandering organizations
could be created with the sole purpose of showing where voting districts
have been created for political rather than
demographic reasons.
Websites and other forms of publication
could continue to highlight where
the most outrageous forms of gerrymandering still exist.
Many
examples already exist on the Internet: search "gerrymandering".
States which allow such forms of political corruption to continue
would get a bad reputation.
Everyone considering that state for a new business or expansion
might take the gerrymandering into account.
Whenever the news media are ready for another gerrymandering
story,
they will be able to find the basic data (and maps)
on the websites of the anti-gerrymandering organizations.
Legislators and judges will eventually pay enough
attention
to get these weird districts reshaped in reasonable ways.
And best of all, if gerrymandering disappears from the United States,
these organizations can go out of business,
at least as far as national elections are concerned.
But gerrymandering also takes place within smaller voting districts,
such as cities, counties, park boards, etc.
8. RACIAL AND ETHNIC
GERRYMANDERING.
Sometimes legislators think they are doing a favor
for specific racial or ethnic groups by creating special districts
from which they can elect a representative of that specific group.
This, however, only makes the problem of 'my-group voting' worse.
Skin color or ethnic group should never be a factor for any public
office.
The fact that Barack Obama was twice elected
President of the USA
shows that voters will vote for qualified candidates of any color.
In my own mainly-white city of Minneapolis,
we have had a black woman as mayor
and a black (Muslim) man as our U.S Representative.
He was later elected to be Attorney General for the whole state.
And he was replaced by a Muslim woman who is also an immigrant.
Can the rest of America make similar choices
without having to set up special districts
that concentrate voters of particular racial or ethnic identities?
When we put voters into ethnic ghettos,
we encourage them to think of themselves in racial terms.
When all districts are fair, then candidates from any and all groups
can offer themselves to the voters of all sorts.
It is manifestly false to assume that African
Americans
will only get the votes of other African Americans.
Let good candidates of any color or ethnic group
ask for the votes of everyone in fair and reasonable election
districts.
THE UNITED STATES AFTER THE END OF
GERRYMANDERING.
Because they were elected by dishonest and unfair
districts,
some extreme members of the U.S. Congress will lose their seats.
Those who were elected merely because they supported a certain ideology
(without perhaps any other lawmaking talents, qualifications, or
abilities)
will be replaced by people elected from fair Congressional Districts,
who will probably represent broader American values.
Because the new Representatives will have to please a wider range of
voters,
they will be people who know
how to compromise.
They will be able to give up some of their original commitments
when they realize that there just
are not enough votes for those
positions.
Some of the most extreme members of Congress
should never have been sent to Washington D.C. in the first place.
Deprived of districts that might have been created to elect them,
they will be replaced by lawmakers
who can get votes from both parties.
Without so many extremists,
the gridlock in the U.S.
House of Representatives might gradually disappear.
Ideological purists of
any political stripe
will be replaced by pragmatic
thinkers who have enough flexibility of
mind
to meet new, unexpected problems with brand-new solutions,
which were not even imagined during the last election.
Once they prove themselves as creative and
intelligent lawmakers,
they will be elected again and again
as long as they continue to do their jobs well.
When America has finally eliminated the last vestige
of gerrymandering,
we can hold our head high once again as a world-class democracy.
The dirty little secret of our former corrupt ways of electing
officials
would finally be a fact of the past.
And we could hold ourselves out once again
as a democracy worthy of emulation all over the planet Earth.
Every vote will count equally.
Extremists will disappear from the Congress.
People elected merely as place-holders
to vote the party line
will be replaced by representatives truly worthy of the trust of the
people.
Whenever legislators prove incompetent
to do the jobs for which they were elected,
they can be replaced by a fair, direct vote of the people
who live in that reasonably-defined area of geography.
AUTHOR:
James
Park is a philosopher with interests including political affairs.
He lives in the state of Minnesota, which has very little
gerrymandering.
More about him will be found on his personal website, linked below.
Created
January 27, 2014; Revised 1-28-2014; 1-29-2014; 2-5-2014; 2-27-2014;
3-7-2014; 4-22-2014; 8-7-2014;
1-25-2015; 8-5-2015; 9-23-2015; 1-25-2017; 3-20-2019;
Did this essay change your thinking?
Before beginning to read, did you think gerrymandering was inevitable?
Do you now believe that distorted election districts
can be replaced by reasonable maps fair to all voters?
Will you support any such efforts to correct gerrymandering?
Further reading on Gerrymandering:
Where voters choose
to live creates unavoidable
concentrations.
Here is a comprehensive article on unintended gerrymandering:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jowei/florida.pdf
See three other kinds of election
reform:
Sex-Balanced
Senate
Revive
the
Electoral College:
One Presidential Elector for each Congressional District
Automatic
Voter Registration