In the past few weeks in Pennsylvania, a GOP lawmaker, Chris Dush, requested that judges of the state’s Supreme Court be impeached in reaction to an order that new congressional maps be drawn. Dush is one of many people who uses gerrymandering to boost the amount of their party’s seats in Congress. But, what is gerrymandering?
Gerrymandering is, according to Webster’s Dictionary, to “manipulate the boundaries of an electoral constituency so as to favor one part or class.” It is essentially a tool to make sure that a certain party wins certain districts.
What people often don’t realize is that the districts that are gerrymandered are drawn by one party in a way that ensures the other party wins that district because a majority of their supporters are in that district. This then leaves larger areas and multiple districts that will sway in favor of the party that drew the new district.
In a perfect world, the representation in Congress would reflect the party divide of the popular vote, however, it often does not. For example, in New York in 2012, 66 percent of the vote went to Democrats, however, they won 78 percent of the House seats. In Pennsylvania, in 2012, Democrats won 51 percent of the vote, but only 27 percent of the House seats. This representation, therefore, isn’t actually representative at all.
Gerrymandering is so problematic because it is a way to systematically ensure power. States redraw districts after each census to ensure each congressperson is representing the same amount of people in each state. However, politicians take advantage of this by drawing district lines to guarantee certain districts vote for their party by putting as many opposite party voters into a few districts so their party has more districts, and, therefore, more power.
Historically, Republicans draw the lines for the most extremely gerrymandered districts, and historically, Democrats win those districts. This is because Republicans confined all Democratic voters to small areas so they would have only a few winners. Because of this, Republican representatives largely only have Republican constituents. Only having to listen to people who have the same views allows representatives to promote more extreme partisan ideas.
The Republican party is largely white, male, and evangelical Protestant. These groups historically have oppressed any other group politically, socially, and economically. These groups of people oppress others to stay in power, and gerrymandering is just another way to do that. 48 percent of registered voters identify as Democrats, compared to 44 percent identified as Republicans. So, without systematic oppression, these people would not have as much power as they do currently.
Republicans have also benefited the most from gerrymandering. A study from the Brennan Center shows that Republicans hold at least 16 seats more than what is representative of the Republican votes.
No matter who does the gerrymandering, and who is affected, it always has a negative impact on representation. Representation in voting should be fair, not drawn out by the same people who hold the power. Political motivation in voting rules, such as literacy tests for African Americans even after they had the right to vote, has a long history of being oppressive and found to be constitutionally unfair. The Constitution is meant to prevent any one party from having too much power, and this should mean that district lines are drawn impartially to best reflect and represent the constituents of a district.
It would be difficult to ensure that the legislative representation 100 percent reflects how people vote, however, it is not difficult to have the numbers be within a small margin. A software has been created that would make it so there were no lines made as strategic ways to suppress representation, but it hasn’t been used to date.
Emma Farina
Opinions Columnist