Elbridge Gerry's initial gerrymander declared unconstitutional
- Thread starter acgoldis
- Start date
Indeed bit odd that it not be illegal when it causes much of problems. Well at least it creates amusing looking district borders.
Because the one man one vote Supreme Court decision didn't happen until the 1960s and drawing district lines is one of those powers that's expressly granted to state legislatures. The only exceptions are in states like California and Iowa where ballot propositions have banned such practices and required districts to be fair, compact, contain whole municipalities where possible, represent existing communities and be set by independent citizen commissions. You'd need the Constitution to be written very differently for gerrymandering to be illegal this early on. Unfortunately the only comparable act happening in this period wasn't until 1832 with the British Great Reform that broke up the rotten boroughs system.
It's not illegal because both parties benefit from it when they get the chance. That makes them reluctant to do anything about it - especially when they are in power, since that is when they have most chance of using it to their own benefit.
Also it's not clear that it is necessarily unconstitutional. The Constitution leaves the "time, place and manner" of Congressional elections to the legislatures of the various states, subject only to the power of Congress to "at any time make or alter such regulations". So Congress probably has the power to legislate against gerrymandering, but afaik has never seen fit to do so.
Butterflies aside, this does nothing to Trump winning, as gerrymandering is a different concept from the electoral college. States are pretty well defined, so they can't really be changed for present political concerns. Districts do not have to consent to their own border changes or dismantling.
Anyway it's worth noting that the technique of gerrymandering is not designed to minimize your opponents voters in your districts but to maximize them in theirs. That is partially the reason why the Il-6 is so wonky, the other reason is that the principle is to give ethnic/racial minorities a chance at better representation. The district has to be contiguous and encompasses two predominantly Hispanic areas of Chicago and a corridor along one of the roads to keep them connected.
Also it only partially explains results like 2012 with Democratic representatives having one million more votes than Republican representatives, another factor is the spread-out nature of many larger Dem-leaning communities within Rep-leading rural areas.
Also it only partially explains results like 2012 with Democratic representatives having one million more votes than Republican representatives, another factor is the spread-out nature of many larger Dem-leaning communities within Rep-leading rural areas.
Were not the 1960s decisions on equal electorates based on the 14th amendment, of course not in effect before the ACW
Literally how could we do away with gerrymandering? It's bad and/or biased redistricting, right?
We could do something about the particulars of gerrymandering, but the thing itself is synonymous with democracy.
We could do something about the particulars of gerrymandering, but the thing itself is synonymous with democracy.
StephenColbert27
Banned
A case over partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin is coming up for the USSCT right now, so we could very well see a major development in the near future.
At large state elections would be far less biased. If you use a closed party-list proportional ticket for states with more than one representative. This would also open the way for smaller parties, effectively breaking the two party deadlock of current American politics. Such a system would force the major parties to cater to more moderate wings of their respective Parties, with more extreme members more likely to create a small splinter party with their own ticket.
This would probably handwave Trump as Hillary and Donald were nominated by the more extreme Left and Right sides of their parties. If the parties fell back under more moderate control neither would have won the Primary. Probably handwave quite a few presidents actually.
Hillary might have won in 08 as at the time she had more moderate support while Obama was the Left Wing favorite. McCaine had pretty broad support from the across the GOP so still would have been nominated. He would've likely lost to Hillary, just as soundly as to Obama coming off Bush years. Since the US electorate was heavily against any Republican candidate.
On the other hand he might have been president in 2000 since Bush was the Far Right candidate for the GOP and McCaine had more moderate support. Gore was supported by the more moderate Wing, which is why he picked Leiberman as his running mate. In a contest between the two McCaine was more likely to win over Gore than Bush by some polls during the primary.
If you institute such as system as far back as the 1800 it becomes impossible to predict the landscape of modern US politics. Since over such a long time those butterflies will have grown into Mothras.