Click here to watch the livestream of the related event, “Fair Maps, Fair Elections, and Fair Representation” today at CAP starting at 12:00 p.m. ET.
Washington, DC – On October 3, the Supreme Court will get an opportunity to put limits on extreme partisan gerrymandering—a practice that negatively impacts accountability and responsiveness of legislators and blocks fair representation—when it hears arguments in Gill v. Whitford.
A new report released today by the Center for American Progress profiles six states where partisan gerrymandering is particularly acute: Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
“When election maps aren’t fair, it is harder for voters to receive the fair representation that they deserve, and progress on issues that matter to people’s lives is derailed” said Liz Kennedy, director of Democracy and Government Reform at the Center for American Progress, and co-author of the report. “Gerrymandered state legislatures, insulated from accountability and political competition, are enacting legislative agendas that do not reflect the values of the majority of citizens in those states. Moreover, recent polling shows that the vast majority of Americans—of both political parties—oppose partisan gerrymandering.”
Every 10 years, states must redraw their elections’ districts based on the U.S. census in order to account for changes in population. In most states, legislatures are responsible for redrawing maps. This manipulation of district boundaries to benefit their political party, either by cramming the other party’s voters into as few districts as possible or by thinly spreading the other party’s voters among districts where they are outnumbered, weakens the voters’ ability to affect election outcomes.
“Due to technological advances, states with gerrymandered districts have maps that are even more skewed than ever before. This manipulation of district results in politicians picking their voters instead of the other way around. Distorted election districts lead to skewed representation and legislators who are less responsive to the will of the voters,” said Billy Corriher, deputy director of Legal Progress at the Center for American Progress, and co-author of the report.
The results of gerrymandering are well-known at the federal level, points out the report. In 2012, Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives received 1.17 million more votes than Republicans, but the GOP ended up with a solid 57 percent majority in the House. However, there are similar stark mismatches between votes cast and representation received at the state level.
Particularly egregious examples of the negative impacts of partisan gerrymandering include the Wisconsin and North Carolina legislatures passing laws pre-empting local bills that are broadly popular, such as expanded civil rights protections and minimum wage increases. Meanwhile, in Michigan, the gerrymandered legislature overturned two ballot referendum votes, including on the much-criticized “emergency manager” law that allowed the state to take over the water supply for the city of Flint.
Click here to read the report, “Distorted Districts, Distorted Laws” by Billy Corriher and Liz Kennedy
Click here to watch the livestream of the related event, “Fair Maps, Fair Elections, and Fair Representation,” today at CAP starting at 12:00 p.m. ET.
For more information or to speak with an expert on this topic, please contact Tanya Arditi at [email protected] or 202.741.6258.