Extreme gerrymandering doesn’t benefit anyone long term

The news has been filled in recent weeks with attempts to redistrict the congressional districts in numerous states around the country, most notably Texas. It is unusual, but not unprecedented, for a state to undertake redistricting in the middle of a decade.

Usually, states redistrict after the U.S. census, which occurs every 10 years (2000, 2010, 2020, 2030, etc.) since the census determines how many seats in the U.S. House of Representatives each state is entitled to have. Every state, no matter how large or small, is allotted two Senators in the U.S. Senate.

Currently, the House breakdown is 219 Republicans and 212 Democrats, and four vacancies. In the U.S. Senate, the Republicans have 53 senators, the Democrats have 45, and there are two Independents.

So why are the Republicans in Texas and some other majority-Republican-legislature states contemplating redrawing their congressional districts mid-decade?

First, the Republican majority is slim, some would say precarious, given the fact that historically the president’s party has lost House seats in 18 of the past 20 midterm elections (it lost Senate seats in 15 of 20 of those election cycles).

This means that history indicates that if things stay structured as they are, President Donald Trump might well lose his slim majority in the U.S. House, which would greatly handicap the last two years of his second and final term as president.

Given the highly partisan nature of Washington currently, many of President Trump’s supporters believe losing the House majority would mean that Trump’s presidency “is basically over.”

Additionally, it was decided to include immigrants in the country illegally in the 2020 census, which is believed to have enhanced the electoral representation of Democratic “Blue” states, which tend to have more of these immigrants. The president has called for a new census, which would undoubtedly decrease the representation of Democrats in the U.S. House.

It is also true that Republican legislatures have not gerrymandered their states as ruthlessly as have their Democratic colleagues. For instance, Massachusetts has nine Democrats and zero Republican congressmen, and yet 36% of its citizens voted for Republicans statewide. Maryland has seven Democrats and one Republican congressman, while 34.08% of its citizens voted for Republicans in the congressional election.

The practice of “gerrymandering” is named after Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry, who served in the U.S. House (1789-1793), as Massachusetts governor (1810-1812), and vice president of the United States. Gov. Gerry pioneered the manipulation of congressional districts within a state to maximize one party’s representation in Congress.

Gerrymandering has long been a tradition in American politics, and both parties have done and do it. However, it has reached extreme proportions in the last half-century. It has reached the stage that among the 435 U.S. House districts across the U.S., it has been estimated that the gerrymandering has been so intense that only between 35 to 50 House districts across the land are truly competitive in the sense that they are realistically “winnable” by either party.

This structure clearly does not serve a truly representative government. Americans should demand that their state legislatures behave more responsibly and construct as many competitive congressional districts as possible.

Two other factors impacting House representation are shifting population between states and shifting sentiments about Republicans and Democrats among the American population.

If current demographic trends continue, states that trend Republican will gain 12 congressional seats in the 2030 census, and the Democrats will lose 12 seats. In addition, the Democratic Party “is hemorrhaging voters” over the last four years. In the 30 states that keep such figures, “the four-year swing towards the Republicans adds up to 4.5 million voters.” 

These trends do not bode well for the Democrats’ near-term future. However, Americans of all political stripes should take a dim view of “gerrymandering,” whether it benefits their party or not. Why? Gerrymandering thwarts the purpose of representative government. All Americans should work to make each state’s U.S. House delegation be as representative of their state’s political balance as possible.

The extreme gerrymandering contributes greatly to the hyper-partisanship in the House, where you have the virtual disappearance of the “center right” and the “center left” because they get defeated in their own party primaries. In recent years, there has been virtually no philosophical overlap between the two parties’ congressional delegations. In other words, the most liberal Republican member has a more conservative voting record than the most conservative Democrat. This makes congressional compromise almost impossible, and it does not truly represent Americans’ political beliefs.

All Americans of goodwill should work for truly representative government in the U.S. House of Representatives. Americans of all political persuasions would benefit tremendously if this were to be achieved.