Unintentional Gerrymandering: Political Geography and Electoral Bias in Legislatures

Chen, Jowei; Rodden, Jonathan

doi:10.1561/100.00012033

Cited by 312 publications

(193 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…However, representative American democracy is also defined partly by its racial ideology, from In this study, we suggest that traditional debates over gerrymandering, analyzed as the process of drawing of boundaries around stable, residential populations (Chen and Rodden ,2013;Goedert 2014) Although four districts represent a small percentage of the state legislature, it means that over 100,000 black residents of Philadelphia do not experience representational equality as defined by the Supreme Court. While much research finds that incarceration has far reaching consequences on social and political life (see Wakefield and Uggen, 2010 for a review), we find that unequal political representation is a perhaps more insidious consequence of hyperincarceration that shifts political power away from urban people of color and toward rural, 28 predominantly white communities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Shifting Power: The Impact of Incarceration on Political Representation

Remster¹,

Kramer²

2017

Preprint

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While prisoners cannot vote, they are counted as residents of the often rural legislative districts where they are incarcerated rather than their often urban home districts. We examine the extent to which incarceration shifts the balance of a representative democracy by considering its impact on legislative apportionment. Drawing on data from the Census, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, and Pennsylvania Redistricting Commission, we develop a counterfactual framework to examine whether removing and returning prisoners to their home districts affects equal representation. Because prisoners are disproportionately African American, we also employ this counterfactual to assess racial differences in the impact of prison gerrymandering.Findings indicate that incarceration shifts political power from urban districts to suburban and rural districts through legislative apportionment. Moreover, non-white communities suffer the most. We conclude by considering how our findings fit a growing literature on the role of mass incarceration in [re]producing racial inequalities in the contemporary United States.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Shifting Power: The Impact of Incarceration on Political Representation

Remster¹,

Kramer²

2017

Preprint

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“…In the aftermath of the 2012 elections, a number of observers claimed that partisan redistricting was responsible for the disparity between House seats and vote shares, though this claim is controversial. Democrats, because of their high concentration in urban areas tend to be distributed less efficiently, thus giving Republicans a structural advantage (Chen & Rodden, 2013). Assigning causality to either mechanism is difficult and is not tested here, but it may offer a strong, and legitimate, justification for using commissions.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Redistricting Commissions on District Bipartisanship and Member Ideology

Ryan

Lyons

2014

Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties

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Reformers advocate the use of commissions rather than legislatures to redistrict as a way of promoting less partisan districts and ideologically moderate congressional members. Much of the evidence in political science suggests that gerrymandering is not a cause of congressional polarization, but whether or not commissions produce different types of districts or members remains an important and unanswered question, especially now that many states have adopted reforms. This article examines whether commissions reduce district partisanship or ideological extremity using time-series-cross-sectional data. We find that bipartisan districts promote member moderation, but there is no evidence that commissions have distinct effects on districts or members as compared to districts drawn by legislatures, consistent with the notion that limiting gerrymandering is not a solution for polarization. These conclusions call into question the appropriateness of redistricting reform, especially when one considers the undemocratic nature of commissions.Partisan redistricting occurs when state legislatures redraw district lines every ten years with sophisticated technology which allows them to serve partisan political purposes such as maximizing the number of seats for their party or protecting incumbents. Partisan redistricting results in a lack of competition for congressional seats, the argument goes, which in turn allows members of Congress to move away from the center and toward the ideological edge. McDonald and Altman summarize this claim by saying: "[f]igures from both major parties tilt the electoral playing field so much that one party is essentially assured of winning a given district, controlling the state legislature or winning the most seats in the state's congressional delegation. In other words, the democratic process is subverted. In this system, politicians select voters rather than voters electing politicians" (McDonald & Altman, 2010).

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“…For example, research arguing that partisan maps during the mild and predictable tides of the 1980s were very effective at creating bias (Owen andGrofman 1988, Cain 1985) countered studies showing little effect of partisan gerrymandering in 1970s, which featured big swings toward both parties (Squire 1985. With respect to nonpartisan commissions, Winburn (2004) and Hill (2008) find little effect of commissions on partisan bias, while Chen and Rodden (2013) find that neutral maps may in fact create unintended pro-Republican bias. Research has also shown the potential high responsiveness of partisan gerrymanders through backfires during adverse tides, but mostly though anecdotal examples of individual states and election years (e.g., Brunell 2005, Seabrook 2010).…”

Section: Goedertmentioning

confidence: 99%

Redistricting, Risk, and Representation: How Five State Gerrymanders Weathered the Tides of the 2000s

GoedertNicholas¹

2014

Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy

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This article uses a toy model of three ''regimes'' of legislative districting, accompanied by five state case studies from the 2000s decade, to demonstrate how measuring the impact of redistricting must be framed by two questions. First, what norm or dimension of representation is being measured? Second, what are the larger electoral conditions under which we are measuring? The article anecdotally shows how districting in five states impacted four different representation norms: bias, responsiveness, competitiveness, and congruence. On several of these dimensions, the success of a gerrymander depends on the national balance of tides in favor of one party in the specific cycle being measured. Especially of note, there is evidence that aggressive partisan gerrymanders perform poorly on most normative dimensions during closely contested elections, but represent voters much better under strong tides adverse to the districting party.

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Unintentional Gerrymandering: Political Geography and Electoral Bias in Legislatures

Cited by 312 publications

References 31 publications

Shifting Power: The Impact of Incarceration on Political Representation

Shifting Power: The Impact of Incarceration on Political Representation

The Effect of Redistricting Commissions on District Bipartisanship and Member Ideology

Redistricting, Risk, and Representation: How Five State Gerrymanders Weathered the Tides of the 2000s

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