Manipulating congressional districts for political benefit is nothing new.
This activity can be traced to Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry who signed off on a bizarre redistricting map in 1812. The Boston Gazette famously dubbed it a gerrymander. The map reminded the journalist of a mythical salamander which was brilliantly depicted by artist and engraver Elkanah Tisdale. Gerry was a governor, signer of the Declaration of Independence, vice president of the United States, and two-term member of the House of Representatives, but his name is forever linked to the practice of marginalizing voters to maximize the power of a political faction.
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Both parties have gerrymandered districts for decades, but Democrats have elevated the practice to an art form.
Illinois is a prime example. The state lost a seat due to apportionment from the last two Censuses, but Democrats consistently increased the number of congressional seats they hold.
|
Illinois House |
Democrat |
Republican |
|
2002 Seats |
10 |
9 |
|
2012 Seats |
12 |
6 |
|
2022 Seats |
14 |
3 |
New York Democrats attempted to gerrymander the state before the election in 2022 but a state court shut them down. Republicans flipped three house seats that year. Democrats tried again and succeeded in time for the 2024 election. The successful gerrymander flipped three seats back to the Democrats. This was a mid-decade gerrymander that Democrats find so offensive.
When Texas redrew its map in 2025, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker accused the state of cheating. To counteract the threat from Texas, Californians gerrymandered their political map. During her campaign for governor, Abigail Spanberger said, “I have no plans to redistrict Virginia.” After inauguration, her plans changed.
In 2020 Virginians approved a constitutional amendment giving redistricting authority to a bipartisan commission with the goal of increasing transparency and reducing partisan gerrymandering. The Virginia Constitution stood in the way of the Democrat party’s designs to obtain political power, so Gov. Spanberger ignored her campaign promise, violated the constitution of her state, and affirmed her loyalty to the Democrat party. The Virginia Supreme Court decided the election was a violation of the state’s constitution and voided it the day after the election.
Spanberger proposed a referendum to amend the state’s Constitution. The ballot asked the question, “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”
Fairness is a relative term in Democrat political circles, but laughable in this context.
State courts and legislatures will be the battlegrounds in the gerrymander wars. In , Chief Justice John Roberts clarified the Supreme Court’s position on gerrymandering.
“The Framers chose a characteristic approach, assigning the issue to the state legislatures, expressly checked and balanced by the Federal Congress, with no suggestion that the federal courts had a role to play … Such claims invariably sound in a desire for proportional representation, but the Constitution does not require proportional representation, and federal courts are neither equipped nor authorized to apportion political power as a matter of fairness. It is not even clear what fairness looks like in this context.”
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While states have the power to prescribe the time, manner, and place of holding elections, Congress can make laws or alter the regulations the state legislatures put in place. The 15th Amendment establishes that, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) was enacted to enforce the 15th Amendment.
To bypass the VRA, states gerrymandered districts to dilute the votes of racial minorities.
In 1982, Congress passed an amendment to the VRA to rectify this. In 1986, the Supreme Court decided in Thornburg v. Gingles that electoral maps must assure the voting rights of minorities are not “denied or abridged.” While federal courts forced southern states to create majority-black districts, the rest of the country gerrymandered their electoral maps as they saw fit. Since blacks are a reliable Democrat constituency, southern states were obligated to create electoral districts that would support Democrat candidates while the preponderance of voters in the states supported Republicans.
The Supreme Court recently clarified this conundrum in . A federal court held that a 2022 political map Louisiana drew violated the VRA because it didn’t include an additional majority-black district. Louisiana redrew its map to include the majority-black district, but a different federal court decided that the new map including the majority-black district was a racial gerrymander. Louisiana appealed to the Supreme Court which held that the VRA did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-black district, and the redrawn political map was indeed an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. It’s unconstitutional for a state to draw a political map to promote racial discrimination against voters whether they are black, white, or purple.
The Supreme Court is sending a clear message to federal courts across the country: gerrymandering for political purposes doesn’t violate the Constitution or federal law, but racial gerrymandering violates both. Since the Constitution leaves election law up to the states, it is up to state legislatures to address political gerrymandering in their states, and it is up to state courts to assure the laws are complied with.
To quote a political maxim from the Three Stooges, gerrymandering , “is going nowhere … fast.” Democrats have successfully used the gerrymander for decades, but Republicans are catching up. Democrats are accusing Republicans of cheating, ruthlessness, racism, fascism, and a variety of isms de jour for their trouble. Both parties participate; Republicans are merely leveling the playing field.
How this affects elections and impacts control of the House of Representatives is hard to predict. The nation’s congressional districts will be as gerrymandered as the voters allow. The talking heads in the media will wonder in amazement about the redistricting craze ongoing in the republic. Democrats will be the cheated victims of the vile racist Republicans in the melodramatic passion play which substitutes as journalism in much of the media today.
Political outcomes are determined by the principles, strategies, and tactics of politicians and the corresponding responses of their constituents. Gerrymandering is a tactic that factions use to maximize their power that will affect elections and control of the House of Representatives. It will be interesting to see who benefits and why.
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