The U.S. Constitution doesn’t say much about what is required for drawing lines for a congressional district. It left the mechanism for electing congressmen and senators in the hands of the states, which has generally meant that states have the responsibility of drawing their own district lines.
The states still have that responsibility, and over the last 232 years, the process of redrawing district lines has evolved very little. The party in power in each state still tries to rig the drawing of lines for new districts every ten years to give itself the maximum advantage at the polls.
In the 1960s, the Supreme Court’s “one man, one vote” rule was put into effect. This killed “at-large” districts that, at the time, were common across the southern states. Basically, the high court took the redistricting process away from the southern states and put it in the hands of the federal courts. At the time, the south was solid Democratic territory — a one-party dictatorship. The GOP barely existed in some states.
Up north, it wasn’t any better. Democrats had a stranglehold on the House of Representatives thanks to Democrats owning the majority of state legislatures and governorships. From the 1940s to the 1990s, Democrats controlled the House.
As their control began to slip in the 1980s, Democrats started using new tools to slice and dice congressional districts down to the precinct level. This was gerrymandering on steroids and it resulted in some of the most laughably drawn congressional districts imaginable.
And we’re still seeing it today.
But when party leaders in Albany introduced the proposed lines on Sunday, many onlookers quickly seized on what seemed to be a singular example of mapmakers’ partisan excess: a freshly drawn district now held by Representative Jerrold Nadler, a powerful Manhattan Democrat.
Indeed, with its serpentine shape, Mr. Nadler’s reimagined district — New York’s 10th — is almost comically contorted and overwhelmingly favors Democrats. It stretches 15 miles through 15 different State Assembly districts from Mr. Nadler’s home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to Brooklyn, jumping over New York Harbor and making three sharp turns to take in small strips of Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill, before broadening out to encompass all of Prospect Park, Borough Park and Bensonhurst.
“Comically contorted” is an understatement. And the redrawn New York map will virtually destroy the Republican Party in New York state, with the GOP losing five seats, leaving them with just four representatives out of 26.
But New York isn’t the only state where Democrats have radically gamed the system for an advantage. In Illinois, they created safe seats for Democratic incumbents while throwing safe Republicans into a district where they would have to face each other in a primary.
Democrats connected Chicago and its suburbs to rural areas and small towns more than 100 miles south of the city.
They also drew long, winding districts connecting distant cities. Illinois’ 13th district connects Champaign to the suburbs of St. Louis, nearly 150 miles away, effectively neutralizing Republicans in the small towns in between.
The result is unfair because Republicans won 41 percent of the vote in Illinois in the last election. With this new map, they would only win three out of 17 seats.
Fortunately, the Democrats’ gerrymandering will not save them in the 2022 congressional elections. That’s because the GOP flimflammed their own gerrymandered maps in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and a few other states.
Related: Devin Nunes Hurts the GOP by Quitting Congress
Most experts believe that the redistricting battle will be a wash, with neither side claiming a clear advantage. This actually hurts the Republicans since Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon will each gain a seat while Texas gains two. Meanwhile California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia each lost a seat. Democrats in blue states being able to rig the map decisively in their favor negates the GOP advantage in drawing new districts in red states.
Again, it won’t matter in the long run. All signs are pointing to a Republican tsunami in November.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member