When John Adams wrote in 1776 of his vision for a representative assembly to make laws for the emerging republic, he declared it “should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large.”
How exactly to pick the people’s representatives for the United States’ elected body, Congress, has been a matter of debate nearly ever since. One founder, James Madison, almost lost his spot in the first Congress because of a rival’s hand in designing Madison’s district. Today, the redrawing of congressional maps to favor a particular party or candidate – known as gerrymandering – dominates the political landscape. President Donald Trump kicked off the current partisan battles by encouraging allies in state legislatures to rework maps ahead of the typical redistricting schedule in order to favor Republicans, sparking counter-efforts among Democratic lawmakers.
Gerrymandering is expected to remain in the spotlight as redistricting efforts face court challenges, and as politicians maneuver to position their parties ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. On Nov. 18, a panel of federal judges blocked the new congressional maps Texas drew in August, saying they were racially gerrymandered. Unlike partisan gerrymandering, redistricting along racial lines is illegal. The state of Texas has appealed to the Supreme Court. (The high court will rule this term on a separate case that could result in significant partisan redistricting if a key provision of the Voting Rights Act is struck down.)
Why We Wrote This
Attempts to control the drawing of congressional districts to benefit a party or candidate stretch back nearly to the country’s founding. This year’s spurt of redistricting has cast renewed interest in what gerrymandering is and how it works.
A lawsuit is also challenging California’s new congressional maps. Voters this month temporarily suspended the state’s independent redistricting commission in favor of new maps to add five Democratic House seats to the state’s delegation. The Justice Department claims the new districts are based on race.
Mr. Trump continues to urge state-level Republicans to redo their maps. This week, he harshly criticized GOP lawmakers in Indiana who dropped their redistricting effort. Six states have changed their congressional maps this year, and at least seven others have considered it according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which notes states have been redistricting this year at “rates not seen since the 1800s.”
Here’s the history behind the centuries-old practice, how it works, and why it remains a contentious part of U.S. politics.
What are the origins of gerrymandering?
The term “gerrymandering” originated in Massachusetts in 1812. The governor at the time, Elbridge Gerry, signed a bill allowing for the redrawing of the state’s voting districts as a means to ensure his party, the Democratic-Republicans, maintained their power in future elections.
The Boston Gazette coined the term, pairing the governor’s last name with criticism that the new (and oddly drawn) districts resembled a salamander. Gerry did not win reelection that year. However, his manipulation of the map allowed the Democratic-Republicans to win 29 out of 40 seats in the legislature.
Though gerrymandering and redistricting are similar, the two are distinct. Redistricting is required every decade by Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution to ensure that congressional districts are aligned with population shifts. Gerrymandering is a form of redistricting with the intention of benefiting one candidate or party.
How has gerrymandering been used in the U.S.?
There are two main methods by which gerrymandering can aid in swinging an election: packing and cracking.
Packing is when supporters of a party or an individual politician are concentrated into a centralized area. Cracking is the opposite: Voters are scattered across multiple districts with the intention of thinning out the opposing party’s influence.
As the 19th century progressed, so did gerrymandering. After the Civil War and passage of the 15th Amendment guaranteeing Black men the right to vote, an aggressive era of gerrymandering began. In Southern states, it became a tactic of racial oppression until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited states from discriminating by race during redistricting.
Other prominent examples of gerrymandering include a 1990s redrawing of North Carolina’s 12th Congressional District, known as the “I-85 district” for its line that nearly exactly paralleled the interstate highway, and Maryland’s 3rd District, which in the 2010s was nicknamed the “praying mantis.”
In recent decades, progress in technology has created new methods for state lawmakers to pinpoint lines based on voting data and mapping software, after generating thousands of potential maps. “The computer has become integral to the gerrymander,” says Nancy Beck Young, a historian at the University of Houston.
What efforts have been made to counter gerrymandering?
While most states leave redistricting in the hands of politicians, some have made efforts to move control of the process into more neutral hands. In 2000, Arizona was one of the first states to create an independent citizen commission to aid in redrawing state legislative districts.
Today, seven states use such commissions for congressional redistricting (with California’s temporarily paused), according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Before those efforts, a series of U.S. Supreme Court cases rolled out in the 1960s had begun cracking down on gerrymandering in what was called the “Reapportionment Revolution.”
The landmark 1962 Supreme Court decision in Baker v. Carr allowed federal courts to intervene in state appointment disputes. That was followed in 1964 by Wesberry v. Sanders, which established that congressional districts must be drawn with roughly equal populations, putting forth the phrase, “one person, one vote.” That same year, Reynolds v. Sims mandated that state legislatures must be proportional in population.
The Voting Rights Act has been successfully used in efforts to challenge gerrymandering, such as in 1984 when a panel of federal judges ruled North Carolina’s redistricting process discriminated against Black voters.
The heart of the Voting Rights Act, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, was Section 5 – which stipulated that certain jurisdictions must get their proposed voting changes approved by the Justice Department or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and ensured changes were nondiscriminatory.
Section 5 and part of Section 4 of the law were struck down by the Supreme Court in its 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision. The ruling effectively ended the federal preapproval process for states proposing jurisdiction plans that could be challenged as being discriminatory.
Building upon the legal framework from that ruling, the Supreme Court is set to decide on Louisiana v. Callais by June. If the justices decide the case earlier in their term, it could set off a scramble as states race to redistrict before next year’s midterm elections.
The case targets Section 2, which is the primary facet of the Voting Rights Act that protects minorities following the court’s 2013 decision, as it as it bans election rules or practices that could deny or limit voting rights of minorities. After the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais last month, many court observers expect the justices to narrow Section 2. The government argues that the Voting Rights Act was not meant to continue indefinitely, and that use of race in gerrymandering runs afoul of the 14th and 15th amendments.
In regard to partisan gerrymandering, the Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Rucho v. Common Cause held that federal courts do not have the power to review partisan gerrymandering claims, leaving it to states to decide.
