Here's how to make gerrymandering less ridiculous

Is it a Rorschach test?  Some avant-garde work of art?  Did the ink on the map not properly dry?  No, it’s the Illinois 4th congressional district, and it’s a gerrymandered mess.

As political polarization intensifies and the population continues to grow, the battle for power between the Republican and Democratic parties will become increasingly ruthless. The razor-thin majority in Congress held by the Republicans has led to a mid-decade redistricting effort in Texas. Meanwhile, since they were already required by a state Supreme Court case to redraw their own congressional districts this year, Ohio Republicans seem poised to grab for maximum partisan advantage.

Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee warned, "If they go down this path, absolutely folks are going to respond across the country."

The parties are at war for power, and the people’s interests are secondary.

So how did we get here? How did we get from a country of, by, and for the people to a country where the political parties fight for power, making it harder and harder for its citizens to be part of the process? In 2017, just 37 percent of Americans could name their representative.

Eldridge Gerry (1744-1814) was an American patriot. He signed the Declaration of Independence, participated in the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, and served as vice president.  However, during his time as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, he signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area, which was likened to the shape of a mythological salamander. For all his achievements, he will be forever remembered as the father of gerrymandering, which is named after him.

The original formula for allocating seats in the House of Representatives was set at one representative per 30,000 residents. The goal was to balance the interests of the large and small states. Our founders believed that smaller congressional districts would lead to a better relationship between citizens and their government. In fact, the only time George Washington rose to speak at length during the Philadelphia Convention was to acknowledge that the ratio of representation was one of “the exceptional parts of the plan.”

Having smaller congressional districts meant that people who were alike in terms of location were grouped together to speak at a national level. Gerrymandering undermines this idea by splitting neighbors from each other or packing them in districts with others from the same party to secure a seat for the political party in control.

The first proposed amendment to the Constitution was intended to guarantee the right of representation by establishing smaller congressional districts; however, a mysterious error in the bill prevented it from passing.

In addition, the Constitution was silent as to how states should select their representatives, stating only that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” So the action was in the states, especially in establishing the districts. 

In 1842, fearing a midterm shellacking, the Whig party began to concentrate its focus on gerrymandering to save a few seats and passed the 1842 Apportionment Act. This law set the ratio of representatives to population at one for every 70,680 residents, which reduced the size of the House of Representatives to 223 seats. It also mandated that states be divided into single-member congressional districts for elections.

The most aggressive era of gerrymandering occurred after the Reconstruction era, from 1878 to 1896. This was a period in which Democrats and Republicans were in close competition for national power, partisan loyalties were firm, and voter turnout was high.

Under such conditions, gerrymandering became both more effective and more essential to winning elections. In 1929, the Permanent Apportionment Act capped the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives at 435. No party could add additional seats, so creating safe districts became increasingly important.

Today, gerrymandering is a game all states play. As Gina Feliz and Yurij Rudensky, writing for the Brennan Center, note, “More than 9 million Ohioans (about 77 percent of the state’s population) live in districts where elections for state representatives are not in serious dispute, completely uncontested.”

Peter Pinedo, reporting for Fox News, broke a 2021 story about the use of migrants to stack districts. “The video, from a 2021 House Foreign Affairs Committee briefing, shows long-time New York Democrat Yvette Clarke suggesting that the local Haitian community in Brooklyn could ‘absorb a significant number of these migrants.” Clarke stated, “I’m saying, you know, I need more people in my district, just for redistricting purposes, and those members could clearly fit here.”

In other words, she wanted to use migrants without the right to vote as a tool for power over the rights and interests of U.S. citizens in her district.

Today’s reordering of the population into red and blue states, and, into urban, suburban, and rural districts, makes gerrymandered seats even less competitive. Gerrymandering betrays the vision of a House truly representing the people. It dilutes representation, which in turn reduces citizen engagement and exacerbates political polarization. It has the effect of insulating the legislative body against the consequences of changing sentiments and circumstances.

Our solution is to add more House seats.

In Federalist 10, Madison states, “The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.” And so are the ambitions to keep uncompetitive House seats. By uncapping the number of seats in the House, creating more districts, we would not make it impossible to gerrymander, but we would remove many of the incentives to do so. Smaller districts are more representative and also harder to manipulate.  

So uncap the house and rein in gerrymandering at least a bit. Elbridge Gerry may not have approved, but James Madison would. 

Jeff Mayhugh is the founding editor of Politics and Parenting and vice president at No Cap Fund. AD Tippet is a freelance writer, the founder and Publisher of the Conservative Historian, and the Chronicle of American History Podcasts.