Misplaced Pages

#859140

79-619: Wisconsin's 4th congressional district is a congressional district of the United States House of Representatives in Wisconsin , encompassing a part of Milwaukee County and including almost all of the city of Milwaukee (except the slivers of the city in Waukesha and Washington counties), as well as its working-class suburbs of Cudahy , St. Francis , South Milwaukee , and West Milwaukee . Recent redistricting has added

158-581: A 2010 referendum in California gave the power to redraw congressional district lines to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission , which had been created to draw California State Senate and Assembly districts by a 2008 referendum. In stark contrast to the redistricting efforts that followed the 2000 census, the redistricting commission has created a number of the most competitive congressional districts in

237-596: A deviation of less than 1%. Many other nations assign independent bodies to oversee and mandate the delimitation of boundaries; however, in some nations the legislature manages this process. In the United States, legislatures play a commanding role in the redistricting (as delimitation is referred to in the United States) of congressional districts. The redrawing of boundaries occurs after the decennial census ; single-member constituencies are responsible for

316-525: A district to the opposition, politicians can create more packed districts, leading to more comfortable margins in unpacked ones. Some political science research suggests that, contrary to common belief, gerrymandering does not decrease electoral competition and can even increase it. Some say that, rather than packing the voters of their party into uncompetitive districts, party leaders tend to prefer to spread their party's voters into multiple districts so that their party can win more races. (See scenario (c) in

395-481: A function of which districts each party represents or the distribution of constituency preferences." One state in which gerrymandering has arguably had an adverse effect on electoral competition is California. In 2000, a bipartisan redistricting effort redrew congressional district lines in ways that all but guaranteed incumbent victories; as a result, California saw only one congressional seat change hands between 2000 and 2010. In response to this obvious gerrymandering,

474-467: A gerrymandered system from achieving proportional and descriptive representation , as the winners of elections are increasingly determined by who is drawing the districts, rather than the voters' preferences. Gerrymandering may be advocated to improve representation within the legislature among otherwise underrepresented minority groups by packing them into a single district. This can be controversial, as it may lead to those groups' remaining marginalized in

553-457: A list of candidates any party puts forth. This method is used in Austria, Brazil, Sweden, and Switzerland. In the U.S., such reforms are controversial and face particularly strong opposition from groups that benefit from gerrymandering. In a more neutral system, they might lose considerable influence. The most commonly advocated electoral reform proposal targeted at gerrymandering is to change

632-737: A marked propensity for couching the process in secrecy; in May 2010, for example, the Republican National Committee held a redistricting training session in Ohio where the theme was "Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe". A 2012 investigation by The Center for Public Integrity reviewed every state's redistricting processes for both transparency and potential for public input, and ultimately assigned 24 states grades of either D or F. In response to these types of problems, redistricting transparency legislation has been introduced to US Congress

711-571: A number of times in recent years, including the Redistricting Transparency Acts of 2010, 2011, and 2013. Such policy proposals aim to increase the transparency and responsiveness of the redistricting systems in the US. The merit of increasing transparency in redistricting processes is based largely on the premise that lawmakers would be less inclined to draw gerrymandered districts if they were forced to defend such districts in

790-468: A particular effort to a particular politician or group. Examples are the 1852 " Henry-mandering ", "Jerrymander" (referring to California Governor Jerry Brown ), "Perrymander" (a reference to Texas Governor Rick Perry ), " Tullymander " (after the Irish politician James Tully ), and " Bjelkemander " (referencing Australian politician Joh Bjelke-Petersen ). Gerrymandering's primary goals are to maximize

869-432: A partisan gerrymander, the legislature instead agrees to ensure its own reelection. In an unusual occurrence in 2000, for example, the two dominant parties in the state of California cooperatively redrew both state and federal legislative districts to preserve the status quo, insulating the incumbents from unpredictable voting. This move proved completely effective, as no state or federal legislative office changed party in

SECTION 10

#1732787314860

948-459: A professor at Morgan State University , describes it as politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians. The term gerrymandering is a portmanteau of a salamander and Elbridge Gerry , Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that

1027-553: A public forum. As gerrymandering relies on the wasted-vote effect , the use of a different voting system with fewer wasted votes can help reduce gerrymandering. In particular, the use of multi-member districts alongside voting systems establishing proportional representation such as party-list proportional representation or single transferable voting can reduce wasted votes and gerrymandering. Semi-proportional voting systems such as single non-transferable vote or cumulative voting are relatively simple and similar to first past

1106-480: A rule of one man, one vote . Another means to reduce gerrymandering is to create objective, precise criteria with which any district map must comply. Courts in the United States, for instance, have ruled that congressional districts must be contiguous in order to be constitutional. This, however, is not a particularly effective constraint, as very narrow strips of land with few or no voters in them may be used to connect separate regions for inclusion in one district, as

1185-485: A single district. There has been no official delimitation process in the Philippines since the 1987 constitution's ratification. As per Article 6 of the constitution, the requisites for creation of a legislative district are as follows: Since 1987, 43 districts have been newly added due to the creation of new cities and provinces, sundering from existing provinces, and piecemeal redistricting. As incumbents control

1264-547: A state. The boundaries and numbers shown for the congressional districts are established by their respective state's constitution or court orders in the apportionment and redistricting cycle. Apportionment in the United States involves dividing the 435 voting seats every ten years. As per Article One of the United States Constitution , elections to the House of Representatives are held every two years, and

1343-541: A substantial number of districts are designed to be polarized, then those districts' representation will also likely act in a heavily partisan manner, which can create and perpetuate partisan gridlock. Gerrymandering can thus have a deleterious effect on the principle of democratic accountability. With uncompetitive seats/districts reducing the fear that incumbent politicians may lose office, they have less incentive to represent their constituents' interests, even when those interests conform to majority support for an issue across

1422-565: A three-to-one margin over John McCain , with 75.39% of the vote to McCain's 23.61%. Before the 2000 census, the 4th covered much of south Milwaukee, and extended into eastern Waukesha County . After Wisconsin lost a district in the 2000 census, the 4th was cut back to a Milwaukee County district. Milwaukee County 42°54′30″N 87°50′36″W  /  42.90833°N 87.84333°W  / 42.90833; -87.84333 Congressional district Terminology for congressional districts vary by nations. The term "congressional district"

1501-427: Is another benefit of having a gerrymandered seat. Gerrymandering also has significant effects on the representation voters receive in gerrymandered districts. Because gerrymandering can be designed to increase the number of wasted votes among the electorate, the relative representation of particular groups can be drastically altered from their actual share of the voting population. This effect can significantly prevent

1580-413: Is integral in administering fair and sovereign judicial systems for nations with delimitation processes. Manipulation of this framework often results in gerrymandering , the practice of drawing district boundaries to achieve political advantage for legislators. There are currently 243 congressional districts in the Philippines. Voting representatives are elected from these districts to the lower house of

1659-501: Is largely used in the United States and is distinctive from legislative districts. In the United States, congressional districts were inscribed into the Constitution to ensure representation based on population. Conversely, state legislation declares that "legislative representation be (built upon) non-population related principles such as representation of counties, cities, or other geographical and political unit". Apportionment

SECTION 20

#1732787314860

1738-730: Is simply to stop redistricting altogether and use existing political boundaries such as state, county, or provincial lines. While this prevents future gerrymandering, any existing advantage may become deeply ingrained. The United States Senate , for instance, has more competitive elections than the House of Representatives due to the use of existing state borders rather than gerrymandered districts—Senators are elected by their entire state, while Representatives are elected in legislatively drawn districts. The use of fixed districts creates an additional problem, however, in that fixed districts do not take into account changes in population. Individual voters can come to have very different degrees of influence on

1817-408: Is the city/municipality which is equivalent to a city/town in the United States. Provinces are represented by governors and can be split into multiple congressional districts, each of which elects a congressman. Provincial governors allocate resources and control patronage in municipalities across all congressional districts in the province, thus have greater exposure and power than a representative from

1896-469: Is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries to advantage a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The manipulation may involve "cracking" (diluting the voting power of the opposing party's supporters across many districts) or "packing" (concentrating the opposing party's voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts). Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents . Wayne Dawkins,

1975-410: Is the process by which seats in a congressional body are allocated amongst constituencies entitled to representation such that each district receives seats in proportion to its population. Apportionment aims to fairly represent all voters through a principle of proportionality; however this is often difficult as proportions can be fractions whilst seats cannot be, and governments may be unable to quantify

2054-419: The 2004 election , although 53 congressional, 20 state senate, and 80 state assembly seats were potentially at risk. In 2006, the term "70/30 district" came to signify the equitable split of two evenly split (i.e. 50/50) districts. The resulting districts gave each party a guaranteed seat and retained their respective power base. Since the first handshake deal in 1981, whereby Republicans informally controlled

2133-490: The Congress of the Philippines every three years. In 1946 there were originally 98 congressional districts, this number increased to 200 after the 1987 constitution was created and new redistricting articles were mandated The Philippines constitution mandates a nationwide reapportionment of setting boundaries for legislative districts; however, the legislature has not approved a reapportionment bill since 1987. Following

2212-438: The 107 affected seats; in those seven states, Republicans received 50.4% of the votes but won in over 68% of the congressional districts. While it is but one example of how gerrymandering can have a significant effect on election outcomes, this kind of disproportional representation of the public will seems problematic for the legitimacy of democratic systems, regardless of one's political affiliation. In Michigan , redistricting

2291-428: The 2000 census. There, the equally numbered partisan appointees were unable to reach consensus in a reasonable time, and so the courts had to determine district lines. In the U.S. state of Iowa , the nonpartisan Legislative Services Bureau (LSB, akin to the U.S. Congressional Research Service ) determines electoral district boundaries. Aside from satisfying federally mandated contiguity and population equality criteria,

2370-404: The 2012 election for the state legislature, that gap in wasted votes meant that one party had 48.6% of the two-party votes but won 61% of the 99 districts. The wasted vote effect is strongest when a party wins by narrow margins across multiple districts, but gerrymandering narrow margins can be risky when voters are less predictable. To minimize the risk of demographic or political shifts swinging

2449-439: The 435 regions from which voting representatives are elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. After the decennial census population counts and apportionment of congressional seats, states are required to define and delineate their own congressional districts for the purpose of electing members to the House of Representatives. Each congressional district is expected to be equal in population to all other congressional districts in

Wisconsin's 4th congressional district - Misplaced Pages Continue

2528-701: The House of Representatives received 83,000 more votes than Republican candidates, yet the Republican-controlled redistricting process in 2010 resulted in Democrats losing to their Republican counterparts in 13 of Pennsylvania's 18 districts. In the seven states where Republicans had complete control over the redistricting process, Republican House candidates received 16.7 million votes and Democratic House candidates received 16.4 million. The redistricting resulted in Republican victories in 73 out of

2607-649: The House size and number of congressional districts were fixed in 1941, the Huntington-Hill method became the official method of apportionment and was used in the 2020 apportionment and redistricting cycle. The current method solves many of the issues concerning previous methods, however it still violates the 'one person, one vote' rule established in Wesberry v. Sanders (1964) due to systematic bias which gives more representation and power to small states than to residents of large states. These methods have been

2686-491: The LSB mandates unity of counties and cities. Consideration of political factors such as location of incumbents, previous boundary locations, and political party proportions is specifically forbidden. Since Iowa's counties are chiefly regularly shaped polygons , the LSB process has led to districts that follow county lines. In 2005, the U.S. state of Ohio had a ballot measure to create an independent commission whose first priority

2765-551: The Milwaukee County North Shore communities of Glendale , Shorewood , Whitefish Bay , Fox Point , Bayside , and Brown Deer to the district. It is currently represented by Gwen Moore , a Democrat . With a Cook Partisan Voting Index rating of D+25, it is the most Democratic district in Wisconsin. John Kerry won 69% of the vote here in 2004 . Barack Obama also swept the district in 2008 , by

2844-508: The Republican Party (which had limited support among African Americans and could concentrate its power elsewhere) and by minority representatives elected as Democrats from these constituencies, who then had safe seats. The 2012 election provides a number of examples of how partisan gerrymandering can adversely affect the descriptive function of states' congressional delegations. In Pennsylvania, for example, Democratic candidates for

2923-540: The U.S. the Alabama Legislature refused to redistrict for more than 60 years, despite major changes in population patterns. By 1960 less than a quarter of the state's population controlled the majority of seats in the legislature. This practice of using fixed districts for state legislatures was effectively banned in the United States after the Reynolds v. Sims Supreme Court decision in 1964, establishing

3002-650: The benefit of the Democratic-Republican Party . When mapped, one of the contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble a mythological salamander . Appearing with the term, and helping spread and sustain its popularity, was a political cartoon depicting a strange animal with claws, wings and a dragon-like head that supposedly resembled the oddly shaped district. The cartoon was most likely drawn by Elkanah Tisdale , an early-19th-century painter, designer, and engraver who lived in Boston at

3081-524: The board can be denied information that might aid in gerrymandering, such as the demographic makeup or voting patterns of the population. As a further constraint, consensus requirements can be imposed to ensure that the resulting district map reflects a wider perception of fairness, such as a requirement for a supermajority approval of the commission for any district proposal. But consensus requirements can lead to deadlock, as occurred in Missouri following

3160-418: The box.) This may lead to increased competition. Instead of gerrymandering, some researchers find that other factors, such as partisan polarization and the incumbency advantage, have driven the recent decreases in electoral competition. Similarly, a 2009 study found that "congressional polarization is primarily a function of the differences in how Democrats and Republicans represent the same districts rather than

3239-422: The country. The effect of gerrymandering for incumbents is particularly advantageous, as they are far more likely to be reelected under conditions of gerrymandering. For example, in 2002, according to political scientists Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann , only four challengers were able to defeat incumbent members of the U.S. Congress, the lowest number in modern American history. Incumbents are likely to be of

Wisconsin's 4th congressional district - Misplaced Pages Continue

3318-506: The decision allowed voters to challenge redistricting plans. Since Shaw v. Reno (1993) and Abrams v. Johnson (1997), the courts have invalidated numerous congressional redistricting plans upon the basis of traditional districting principles. These decisions have been surrounded in controversy as the Supreme Court has not identified these 'traditional' criteria explicitly, resulting in the major political parties attempting to abuse

3397-546: The effect of supporters' votes and minimize the effect of opponents' votes. A partisan gerrymander's main purpose is to influence not only the districting statute but the entire corpus of legislative decisions enacted in its path. These can be accomplished in a number of ways: These tactics are typically combined in some form, creating a few "forfeit" seats for packed voters of one type in order to secure more seats and greater representation for voters of another type. This results in candidates of one party (the one responsible for

3476-413: The election of the legislators that govern this process. In 25 states the state legislature is responsible for creating the redistricting plan, but six states (Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming) do not require redistricting for the House of Representatives and instead elect a single representative for the entire state. Each state has its own constitution and laws surrounding

3555-450: The elections, fewer wasted votes, and a wider variety of political opinions represented. Electoral systems with election of just one winner in each district (i.e., "winner-takes-all" electoral systems) and no proportional distribution of extra mandates to smaller parties tend to create two-party systems. This effect, labeled Duverger's law by political scientists, was described by Maurice Duverger . Another way to avoid gerrymandering

3634-399: The electorate as a whole. Incumbent politicians may look out more for their party's interests than for those of their constituents. Gerrymandering can affect campaign costs for district elections. If districts become increasingly stretched out, candidates may incur higher costs for transportation and campaign advertising across a district. The incumbent's advantage in campaign fundraising

3713-463: The eponymous Gerry is pronounced with a hard g /ɡ/ as in get , the word gerrymander was originally pronounced / ˈ ɡ ɛr i m æ n d ər / , but pronunciation as / ˈ dʒ ɛr i m æ n d ər / , with a soft g /dʒ/ as in gentle, has become dominant. Residents of Marblehead, Massachusetts , Gerry's hometown, continue to use the original pronunciation. From time to time, other names have been suffixed with -‍mander to tie

3792-556: The fact that legislators often draw distorted legislative districts even when doing so does not give their party an advantage. Gerrymandering of state legislative districts can effectively guarantee an incumbent's victory by "shoring up" a district with higher levels of partisan support, without disproportionately benefiting a particular political party. This can be highly problematic from a governance perspective, because forming districts to ensure high levels of partisanship often leads to higher levels of partisanship in legislative bodies. If

3871-461: The first decennial census was conducted in 1790 but was abandoned in 1840 as it favoured larger states such as Virginia, Thomas Jefferson 's home state and the most influential state at the time. Hamilton's method was used intermittently for the next half-century and was eventually replaced by Webster's as the Hamilton method resulted in population paradoxes when the House size increased. After

3950-440: The gerrymandering) winning by small majorities in most of the districts, and another party winning by a large majority in only a few. Any party that endeavors to make a district more favorable to voting for it based on the physical boundary is gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is effective because of the wasted vote effect . Wasted votes are votes that did not contribute to electing a candidate, either because they were in excess of

4029-437: The government as they become confined to a single district. Candidates outside that district no longer need to represent them to win elections. As an example, much of the redistricting conducted in the U.S. in the early 1990s involved the intentional creation of additional "majority-minority" districts where racial minorities such as African Americans were packed into the majority. This "maximization policy" drew support from both

SECTION 50

#1732787314860

4108-405: The greater metropolitan areas. The Kent County seat is currently held by Hilary Scholten, a Democratic. landslide . Gerrymandering can also be done to help incumbents as a whole, effectively making every district a packed one and greatly reducing the potential for competitive elections. This is particularly likely to occur when the minority party has significant obstruction power: unable to enact

4187-425: The incumbents contesting a primary or general election won their races. Prison-based gerrymandering occurs when prisoners are counted as residents of a district, increasing its population with non-voters when assigning political apportionment. This phenomenon violates the principle of one person, one vote because, although many prisoners come from (and return to) urban communities, they are counted as "residents" of

4266-457: The independent Australian Electoral Commission and its state-based counterparts determine electoral boundaries for federal, state and local jurisdictions. To help ensure neutrality, members of a redistricting agency may be appointed from relatively apolitical sources, such as retired judges or longstanding members of the civil service, possibly with requirements for adequate representation among competing political parties. Additionally, members of

4345-452: The institutions that determine the rules for redistricting, many of the congressional districts are allegedly gerrymandered to ensure the elite persistence of select families that form the Philippines' political dynasties. This is illustrated by the Marcos family which remained in power from 1987 to 2008 in almost 50 congressional districts, despite term limits. Congressional districts are

4424-537: The lack of legislation and definition to advantage their respective parties. According to the database of redistricting laws in all fifty states and previous court decisions, the de facto principles are: compactness, contiguity, equal population, and preserving county and city boundaries. Gerrymandering In representative electoral systems , gerrymandering ( / ˈ dʒ ɛr i m æ n d ər ɪ ŋ / JERR -ee-man-dər-ing , originally / ˈ ɡ ɛr i m æ n d ər ɪ ŋ / GHERR -ee-man-dər-ing )

4503-606: The legislative process. This malapportionment can greatly affect representation after long periods of time or large population movements. In the United Kingdom during the Industrial Revolution , several constituencies that had been fixed since they gained representation in the Parliament of England became so small that they could be won with only a handful of voters ( rotten boroughs ). Similarly, in

4582-443: The majority of districts and are drawn to produce a result favoring the incumbent party. A quantitative measure of the effect of gerrymandering is the efficiency gap , computed from the difference in the wasted votes for two different political parties summed over all the districts. Citing in part an efficiency gap of 11.69% to 13%, a U.S. District Court in 2016 ruled against the 2011 drawing of Wisconsin legislative districts. In

4661-591: The majority party orchestrating a gerrymander, and are usually easily renominated in subsequent elections, including incumbents among the minority. Mann, a Senior Fellow of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution , has also noted that "Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders)". The bipartisan gerrymandering Mann mentions refers to

4740-500: The name Gerry and the animal salamander ) was used for the first time in the Boston Gazette on 26 March 1812 in Boston, Massachusetts , United States . This word was created in reaction to a redrawing of Massachusetts Senate election districts under Governor Elbridge Gerry , later Vice President of the United States . Gerry, who personally disapproved of the practice, signed a bill that redistricted Massachusetts for

4819-401: The number needed for victory or because the candidate lost. By moving geographic boundaries, the incumbent party packs opposition voters into a few districts they will already win, wasting the extra votes. Other districts are more tightly constructed, with the opposition party allowed a bare minority count, thereby wasting all the minority votes for the losing candidate. These districts constitute

SECTION 60

#1732787314860

4898-540: The numbers of delegates are apportioned amongst the states according to their relative populations. The Constitution itself makes no mention of districts. The U.S. Constitution does not specify how apportionment is to be conducted and multiple methods have been developed and utilized since the Article's inception such as the Jefferson, Hamilton and Webster methods. The Jefferson method was first utilized in 1792 after

4977-400: The post and can also reduce the proportion of wasted votes and thus potential gerrymandering. Electoral reformers have advocated all three as replacement systems. Electoral systems with various forms of proportional representation are now found in nearly all European countries, resulting in multi-party systems (with many parties represented in the parliaments) with higher voter attendance in

5056-511: The practice more difficult or less effective. Countries such as the UK, Australia, Canada and most of those in Europe have transferred responsibility for defining constituency boundaries to neutral or cross-party bodies. In Spain, they are constitutionally fixed since 1978. Open party-list proportional representation makes gerrymandering obsolete by erasing district lines and empowering voters to rank

5135-659: The precise number of actual voters. Delimitation or redistricting is the process of drawing congressional boundaries and can also refer to the demarcation of voting areas for the purpose of assigning voters to polling places. Delimiting is a common process in nations with first-past-the-post systems , two-round systems , alternative vote , block vote , parallel and mixed-member proportional systems and single-member districts . Nations without these processes typically have proportional representation electoral systems, such as Chile, Honduras, Norway, Spain, and many others. The methodological framework that governs these processes

5214-496: The redistricting process, and most of the modern criteria applied federally have come about through rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to 1962, there was limited federal and state government regulation on redistricting, and these were rarely enforced. However, after the Baker v. Carr (1962) decision redistricting became justiciable and courts became an active participant in the redistricting process of congressional districts as

5293-589: The redistricting process. The I-cut-you-choose method achieves fairness by putting the two major-parties in direct competition. I-cut-you-choose is a fair division method to divide resources amongst two parties, regardless of which party cuts first. This method typically relies on assumptions of contiguity of districts but ignores all other constraints such as keeping communities of interest together. This method has been applied to nominal redistricting problems but it generally has less public interest than other types of redistricting reforms. The I-cut-you-choose concept

5372-611: The redistricting process. Under these proposals, an independent and presumably objective commission is created specifically for redistricting, rather than having the legislature do it. This is the system used in the UK, where independent boundary commissions determine the boundaries for constituencies in the House of Commons and the devolved legislatures , subject to ratification by the body in question (almost always granted without debate). A similar situation exists in Australia, where

5451-583: The rest of 1812. This suggests an organized activity by the Federalists to disparage Gerry in particular and the growing Democratic-Republican party in general. Gerrymandering soon began to be used to describe cases of district shape manipulation for partisan gain in other states. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the word's acceptance was marked by its publication in a dictionary (1848) and in an encyclopedia (1868). Since

5530-522: The rural districts that contain large prisons, artificially inflating the political representation in districts with prisons at the expense of voters in districts without them. Others contend that prisoners should not be counted as residents of their original districts when they do not reside there and are not legally eligible to vote . Due to the perceived issues associated with gerrymandering and its effect on competitive elections and democratic accountability, numerous countries have enacted reforms making

5609-486: The state senate redistricting process and Democrats informally controlled the state assembly redistricting process, New York has experienced some of the nation's least competitive legislative elections. One study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School found that over one ten-year period, as many members of the state legislature died in office as were defeated in elections. More than 99% of

5688-576: The subject of debate for over 200 years as losing or gaining a seat affects representation which is the source of political power. Congressional districts are subject to the Equal Protection Clause and it is expected that they apportion congressional districts closer to mathematical equality than state legislative districts. The U.S Supreme Court in Karcher v. Daggett (1983) rejected New Jersey's congressional redistricting plans due to

5767-562: The time. Tisdale had the engraving skills to cut the woodblocks to print the original cartoon. These woodblocks survive and are preserved in the Library of Congress . The creator of the term gerrymander , however, may never be definitively established. Historians widely believe that the Federalist newspaper editors Nathan Hale and Benjamin and John Russell coined the term, but there is no definitive evidence as to who created or uttered

5846-726: The word for the first time. The redistricting was a notable success for Gerry's Democratic-Republican Party. In the 1812 election , both the Massachusetts House and governorship were comfortably won by Federalists , losing Gerry his job, but the redistricted state senate remained firmly in Democratic-Republican hands. The word gerrymander was reprinted numerous times in Federalist newspapers in Massachusetts, New England , and nationwide for

5925-755: The ‘one person, one vote’ doctrine, political territories are expected to be symmetric and have limited variance in the size of its constituencies. However, many new districts have been created that defy the basic requisites for redistricting as the constitution fails to clearly expound the due process for apportionment and redistricting. This has resulted in unequal representation in districts such as Calacoon City, and Batanes being represented by one legislator each, despite containing populations of 1.2 million and 17 000 people respectively. Philippine's 243 congressional districts are composed of territories within provinces, cities and municipalities. From an American perspective, provinces are equivalent to states, and below that

6004-415: Was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander . The term has negative connotations, and gerrymandering is almost always considered a corruption of the democratic process. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander ( / ˈ dʒ ɛr i ˌ m æ n d ər , ˈ ɡ ɛr i -/ ). The word is also a verb for the process. The word gerrymander (originally written Gerry-mander ; a portmanteau of

6083-598: Was competitive districts, a sort of "reverse gerrymander". A complex mathematical formula was to be used to determine the competitiveness of a district. The measure failed voter approval chiefly due to voter concerns that communities of interest would be broken up. In 2017, Representative John Delaney submitted the Open Our Democracy Act of 2017 to the U.S. House of Representatives as a means to implement nonpartisan redistricting. Many redistricting reforms seek to remove partisanship to ensure fairness in

6162-541: Was conducted by a Republican legislature in 2011. Federal congressional districts were designed so that cities such as Battle Creek , Grand Rapids , Jackson , Kalamazoo , Lansing , and East Lansing were separated into districts with large conservative-leaning hinterlands that diluted the Democratic votes in those cities in Congressional elections. Since 2022 some districts have been redrawn to just include

6241-471: Was popularized by the board game Berrymandering. Problems with this method arise when minor parties are shut-out of the process which will reinforce the two-party system . Additionally, while this method is provably fair to the two parties creating the districts, it is not necessarily fair to the communities they represent. When a single political party controls both legislative houses of a state during redistricting, both Democrats and Republicans have displayed

#859140