Partisan Gerrymandering and the Construction of American Democracy

Abstract

In Partisan Gerrymandering and the Construction of American Democracy, Erik J. Engstrom offers an important, historically grounded perspective on the stakes of congressional redistricting by evaluating the impact of gerrymandering on elections and on party control of the U.S. national government from 1789 through the reapportionment revolution of the 1960s. In this era before the courts supervised redistricting, state parties enjoyed wide discretion with regard to the timing and structure of their districting choices. Although Congress occasionally added language to federal-apportionment acts requiring equally populous districts, there is little evidence this legislation was enforced. Essentially, states could redistrict largely whenever and however they wanted, and so, not surprisingly, political considerations dominated the process.Engstrom employs the abundant cross-sectional and temporal variation in redistricting plans and their electoral results from all the statesthroughout U.S. history-in order to investigate the causes and consequences of partisan redistricting. His analysis reveals that districting practices across states and over time systematically affected the competitiveness of congressional elections, shaped the partisan composition of congressional delegations, and, on occasion, decided party control of the House of Representatives. In conclusion, Engstrom places recent developments in redistricting politics and scholarship within the larger historical context uncovered in this book.

Canada's Federal Electoral Districts, 1867–2021: New Digital Boundary Files and a Comparative Investigation of District Compactness

“…In most states, the majority party in the legislature has a free hand to draw congressional district boundaries and, in doing so, aid their co-partisans at the federal level. Partisan gerrymandering-that is, the intentional construction of districts that reliably elect members belonging to the governing party-has existed in the United States since the formation of parties (Engstrom, 2013) and is as prevalent at the state level as it is at the federal level (Keena et al, 2021).…”

Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights

“…Moreover, especially in the North, gerrymandering was substantially less common than it is today (Snyder and Ansolabehere, 2008). Between 1900 and 1964, despite major demographic shifts induced by international and internal migration (Boustan et al, 2018), redistricting across non-southern districts was typically non-strategic (Engstrom, 2013). If anything, the lack of systematic redistricting rules likely introduced a pro-rural bias: more densely populated areas (i.e.…”

“…As noted in Appendix B, until 1964 (i.e. the end of our sample period), redistricting was unlikely to be strategic (Engstrom, 2013), and was typically mandated at the state level.…”

Legislators' Response to Changes in the Electorate: The Great Migration and Civil Rights

“…Moreover, especially in the North, gerrymandering was substantially less common than it is today (Snyder and Ansolabehere, 2008). Between 1900 and 1964, despite major demographic shifts induced by international and internal migration (Boustan et al, 2013), redistricting across non-southern districts was typically non-strategic (Engstrom, 2013). If anything, the lack of systematic redistricting rules likely introduced a pro-rural bias: more densely populated areas (i.e.…”

“…As noted in Appendix B, until 1964 (i.e. the end of our sample period), redistricting was unlikely to be strategic (Engstrom, 2013), and was typically mandated at the state level. We exploit the fact that between Congress 78 and Congress 82, five states in our sample (Arizona, Illinois, New York, Maryland, and Pennsylvania) required their CDs to redistrict to test whether redistricting was systematically correlated with either black inflows or changes in political conditions (e.g.…”