A Brief And Recent History Of Gerrymandering!

Notes: A brief and recent History of gerrymandering

The word gerrymandering was originally named after Elbridge Gerry. When he was governor in 1812, Gerry signed a piece of legislation that allowed the formation of a partisan district in the Boston area. The shape of this voting district look like a salamander.

Prior to the Civil War, many southern states partially counted African Americans to increase their voting power, this was useful when it came to drawing congressional districts, because it allowed the south to have more representation in Congress than they otherwise would’ve have.

Following the civil war, male African Americans became eligible to vote due to the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, because these former slaves could now vote, many south eastern states started to gerrymander congressional districts in a way that would overwhelmingly benefit the democrat party.

The objective for these map drawers was to compact as many African American voters as possible into one congressional house district, this way the rest of the districts would have a Caucasian majority that would favor leftist views and have a really high chance at electing a democrat,

During the year of eighteen seventy four, the state of South Carolina, created the very first non contiguous voting district, unfortunately for the map drawers, the United States House of Representatives, demanded that South Carolina map drawers go back to contiguous voting districts or be faced with the reality of no representation at all in the House of Representatives, proceeding the eighteenth seventy six congressional elections,

Following the eighteen eighty census, the state of South Carolina, allowed the formation of a congressional district, that looked like, a boa constrictor, this plan put African Americans, who were a population majority statewide, to be placed into one singular winding district, as a result of compacting black voters into one geographic area, all the other congressional districts had Caucasian majorities that were much more favorable to the democrat party, this new setup achieved its desired effect. after the election of eighteen eighty two, the state delegation representing South Carolina in the United States House of Representatives was one republican and six democrats.

During the early nineteenth hundreds, southern democrats started to gerrymander less and less, this is because of new tactics that were designed to scare and stop African Americans from voting, the tactics used by democrats were poll taxes, literacy tests, and lynching, due to the virtual elimination of people of color from voting in elections, democrat controlled state governments didn’t feel the need of further altering districts in their favor, Fun fact, from nineteen hundred to nineteen sixty, many congressional districts in various states remained unchanged and unaltered,

In nineteen sixty, the United state Supreme Court started a redistricting revolution, Under Chief Justice Earl Warren, the highest court in all the land ordered that all congressional voting districts must be redrawn in a way that guarantees almost equal populations, on top of this, state governments are required to alter their federal congressional districts every ten years, that way the House of Representatives better represent recent population shifts,

These rulings guaranteed to the voters, that they will be more evenly represented in the United States House of Representatives,

In nineteen seventy three there was a court case called Gaffney versus Cummings, this court case honored a congressional redistricting plan in which the overall deviation was about almost eight percent for the house and almost two percent for the senate. This is significant because this allows congressional plans with a ten percent deviation to be allowed under constitutional law,

During the year 1986, there was a revolutionary ruling in the case of Thornburg versus Gingles, this court case is important because it set three precedents for deciding racial gerrymandering,

1. A minority group of voters must be able to show that they are large and are geographically compressed to constitute a majority for a single member district,
2. The Minority batch of voters are required to demonstrate that the district their in is politically cohesive,
3. Third and finally, the people of color are required to show that the Caucasian majority votes effectively as a group to allow itself to typically defeat the people of colors preferred candidate,
If any of these guidelines are met, the plan is tossed and the redistricting process must restart,

In nineteen minty three there was a court case called Shaw vs Reno, this court case was important because the Supreme Court decided that redistricting on the basis of race should be handled under strict scrutiny when it comes to the equal protection clause, this made it harder to compact minorities into a singular district,

In twenty nineteen, there was a court case called Rucho versus Common Cause, this case is important because it concluded that while state governments, Congress, and state courts have the freedom to lawfully control partisanship in the redistricting process, reports of excessive partisanship are beyond the federal courts power to fix, the effect of this case is that it gives more power back to the states,

in 2020 Virginia voters passed an amendment that created an independent board composed of eight republicans and eight democrats to redraw both state legislature seats as well as seats for the U.S. House of Representatives.