Words: Eva Smedeby (She/Her)
Gorging on political power, legislators and their employees have been redrawing congressional district lines for centuries. Either for selfish interests or for the riches of those who puppet them, electoral processes are soured, with the same people left perpetually disenfranchised while the electoral system breeds cyclical dissatisfaction for the majority. However, if the institution is better understood by Americans as a collective, there may be ways to begin overriding gerrymandering.
At its initial stage, the presentation of district boundaries is given to one of the two houses of government, The House of Representatives. Made up of a fixed number of 435 officials, their objective is to fairly portray all of the 50 states. The number of representatives each state has is by consequence of the U.S. census, collected every 10 years and mandated by interpreting data of the entire U.S. populace. Each representative is given a congressional district, which is their objective to speak on behalf of the electoral majority in that area. This ensures that when elections swell in, densely populated areas aren’t portrayed with excess, and vice versa.
At least, that was the intent.
The problem is, not all electoral districts will be drawn to fairly represent the votership of the state. More often than not, district lines are skewed in favor of the partisan legislatures who make them, warped to produce a particularly advantageous outcome for their own party. That district’s representative is obliged to speak for their area despite inherent bias, misappropriating the election and leading to unfair results. This practice, called gerrymandering, is achieved by way of brides or collaborative gluttony. But in any case, wealthy elites are the consistent perpetrators, abusing their wealth and influence to manipulate the electoral process, completely disposing of America’s supposed core democratic values.
Funnily enough, the people who are so determined to maintain constitutional values, some even violently so, are the same full-bellied Americans who find loopholes in the system. By skewing district lines, middle to lower class citizens – who constitute an overwhelming majority of the country – are robbed of their rights to actively participate in government. Coupled with particular injustice toward minority groups and the entirety of the working class, these people most rarely get to see their votes accounted for, and so are denied a governing body.
Gerrymandering’s first appearance was over 2 centuries ago, in 1812. With the same ambitions as present day legislators, Elbridge Gerry was determined to contort the congressional districts of Massachusetts in favor of the Democratic-Republican party. Although, when these boundary lines were revealed to the general public, Americans were horrified. The shape was so obscure that many compared its likeness to the body of a salamander. A cartoonist had even added claws and a tongue, making Gerry’s conniving intentions clear, and thus coining the animal as a Gerry-mander. And yet, without proof of intent beyond congenital partisanship, there was nothing technically unlawful about what he had done, leading future U.S. legislatures to use similar methods of slippery politics.
In the many years following Gerry’s success, gerrymandered maps have appeared within nearly every election, some more extreme than others. Quite recently, in 2020, Republican legislatures redrew North Carolina’s 7th, 10th, 11th and 12th districts so that Democratic voters would be grossly divided, splintered into minority groups. What should have been at least one Democratic district was overridden so that Republicans won all 4 congressional votes.
This is where gerrymandering crosses boundaries of partisanship toward racial subjugation. The perpetual favoritism toward white citizens and maintenance of Anglo-control within the governing body can only be a reflection of that. By further revelation, it should be clear what appetite this system was made to nourish.
In the 2024 presidential election, gerrymandering has again surfaced, favoring Republicans in the Midwest and South. As dictated from the most recent, smaller scale elections, Democrats make up 47% of Texan voters, however new district boundaries leave them with only 34% of congressional seats.
The Voting Rights Act would have been transformative in equalizing the country as a whole. Presented in 2022, this Act involved a 2-part operation, the first beginning in the courts where they would eliminate any particularly high rates of partisanship amongst districts. If proven to be gerrymandered, the state would be prohibited from using that map. Despite passing through the House, it did not gain further movement due to 2 oppositional votes in the Senate – American’s insatiable officials. Through participating in what many consider the ‘lesser’ elections, those for House members, governors, senators, and other officials – which don’t garner the same type of extensive gerrymandering – voters can push for reform.
