“The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy” is one of my favorite quotes from a Founding Father and one that I use whenever I teach about the Constitution.
The quote by our most underrated founder, Elbridge Gerry, shows how the founders were cautious of protecting the government from the masses as well as protecting the masses from government. A signatory of our Declaration of Independence, two-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts, and even U.S. vice president under James Madison, Gerry was overshadowed by fellow delegates John Adams and John Hancock, who had a much larger signature.
Yet, with all Gerry’s credentials, his name now is mostly associated for something that happened while serving as governor of Massachusetts. Although it was something with which he disagreed, in March of 1812, Gerry signed off on the new redistricting map for the Massachusetts legislature that gave his party an advantage. His opponents said the new district looked like a salamander on the map and called the concept a Gerry-mander, a mashup of Gerry and salamander. The term stuck, and now Gerry is known for manipulating voting districts instead of the several important contributions he made to our nation.
Clearly, Today’s Texas Republicans did not invent gerrymandering; it is as old as our nation itself and has been used by major parties, with some of the worst gerrymandering occurring in the decades of Reconstruction after the American Civil War. Similar to today’s political landscape, presidential elections were all very close with intense party loyalty, even though the Republican Party dominated during those years.
One major difference was most states were swing states and frequently switched between Republicans and Democrats. Whenever a state switched sides, the winning party did what they could to retain power, which usually meant some type of gerrymandering. It was just expected.
But things began to change at the end of the 19th century.
First, as Reconstruction ended and Southerners returned to home rule, Democrats pushed Jim Crow laws to suppress the Black vote which allowed Democrats to remain as the dominant political party in the South for the next 100 years. The Populists, a political party pushing for government regulations on big businesses, stole the Democrats’ thunder in the North allowing Republicans pretty much total control. With swing states now limited, and parties in firm control of the states, gerrymandering was not as important as districts were more stabilized.
In 1911, no new legislative seats were added to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time. Before that, every decennial census showed that as the nation’s population grew so too did the number of representatives. Then, in 1929, the House officially stayed at 435 members and districts were redistributed every 10 years instead of just adding new members. The new system stabilized districts even more.
Little change happened with congressional district maps over the next several decades but with the population shifting from the countryside to the cities, it created a representation disparity between densely populated urban districts and their less populated rural counterparts.
Preferable to the powers that be at the time, equal districting allowed smaller rural districts to retain political power while growing urban districts were becoming populated by the poor and minorities. All this changed in 1960s when the U.S. Supreme Court got involved.
In its first case, Baker v. Carr (1962), the Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause enabled the Court to make rulings dealing with redistricting. The case did not do much but it opened the door for future legal challenges, especially Reynolds v. Sims (1964), where the Court established the “One Person, One Vote” principle stating that voting districts must be equal in population. Gone were the days where a major city was one district while the rest of the districts were lightly populated rural areas.
In 1993, the Court took on racial gerrymandering with Shaw v. Reno. In 1990, North Carolina was given a 12th district and the Democratic-controlled legislature created a “snake-like” narrow district that cut through several counties and three voting districts to guarantee a Black majority district. Rush O. Shaw led a group that challenged the new district but it was supported by Democratic Attorney General Janet Reno. When the Supreme Court took up the case, it ruled against Reno, stating race cannot be the dominant factor in drawing districts.
The reason Reno had a say in the district was that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act required certain states to get federal approval before changing voting laws. This was to stop Southern states from suppressing the Black vote; however, in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court ruled that the requirement of federal permission to states to change their voting practices was unconstitutional. Not only did this change allow for states to now require IDs to vote, but it also opened the door for real gerrymandering to begin.
Finally, there is Rucho v. Common Cause (2019). Back to North Carolina where, after the 2010 Census, district maps were redrawn to help Republicans. Democrats sued and won, claiming the map was drawn on racial lines. Republicans redid the map with no racial data, but purely political. And, once again, the Democrats sued. But in Rucho, the Court ruled that while gerrymandering for political reasons may be morally wrong, it was outside the Court’s jurisdiction, effectively ending federal challenges to partisan maps.
While the Court was busy with cases, 2011 seems to be the heyday of political gerrymandering, all based off the new districts drawn after the 2010 Census. In Pennsylvania, Republicans won 13 of 18 U.S. House seats despite Democrats winning a majority of the statewide vote, and in Wisconsin, Republicans won 60 of 99 seats despite Democrats winning 53% of the statewide vote. On the flip side, Democrats in Maryland won seven of eight House seats, even though Republicans won the statewide vote. Famously, Democrats in Illinois gained several seats, ultimately controlling 12 of 18 even though the statewide totals broke even.
These are just a few examples of gerrymandering over the past few decades. While it is not a practice reserved for one party, with current laws on the books, it clearly will not be the last.
James Finck is a professor of American history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He may be reached at Historically-Speaking1776@gmail.com.
