BiblioVault - Books about Apportionment (Election law)

Bushmanders and Bullwinkles

How Politicians Manipulate Electronic Maps and Census Data to Win Elections

Mark Monmonier

University of Chicago Press, 2001

For years Mark Monmonier, "a prose stylist of no mean ability or charm" according to the Washington Post, has delighted readers with his insightful understanding of cartography as an art and technology that is both deceptive and revealing. Now he turns his focus to the story of political cartography and the redrawing of congressional districts. His title Bushmanders and Bullwinkles combines gerrymander with the surname of the president who actively tolerated racial gerrymandering and draws attention to the ridiculously shaped congressional districts that evoke the antlers of the moose who shared the cartoon spotlight with Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

Written from the perspective of a cartographer rather than a political scientist, Bushmanders and Bullwinkles examines the political tales maps tell when votes and power are at stake. Monmonier shows how redistricting committees carve out favorable election districts for themselves and their allies; how disgruntled politicians use shape to challenge alleged racial gerrymanders; and how geographic information systems can make reapportionment a controversial process with outrageous products. He also explores controversies over the proper roles of natural boundaries, media maps, census enumeration, and ethnic identity. Raising important questions about Supreme Court decisions in regulating redistricting, Monmonier asks if the focus on form rather than function may be little more than a distraction from larger issues like election reform.

Characterized by the same wit and clarity as Monmonier's previous books, Bushmanders and Bullwinkles is essential background for understanding what might prove the most contentious political debate of the new decade.

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Constructing a Democracy

The History, Law, and Politics of Redistricting in Oregon

Norman R. Williams

Oregon State University Press, 2023

Every ten years, states go through the process of redistricting: choosing how to divide up and apportion their state and federal legislative districts. How the districts are drawn can determine which party wins the district and therefore controls the legislature or Congress. Although the process may be different in every state, the questions are the same: Who draws the maps? Who can prevent gerrymandering? What power do legislatures, governors, courts, and political parties have to influence the process and the outcomes?

In Constructing a Democracy, legal scholar Norman Williams presents a comprehensive history of legislative and congressional redistricting in Oregon. Because redistricting impacts the representativeness of the ensuing legislative body, Oregon’s constitutional framers, legislators, and courts alike have understandably focused on developing legal rules to constrain the redistricting process. Williams is primarily interested in identifying and understanding the scope of those rules: What legal constraints have existed over time? How aggressively have the courts enforced those restraints? How have political actors undertaken the redistricting task in light of the various rules and the judicial pronouncements regarding those constraints?

The redistricting process in Oregon has not drawn national attention the way it has in states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania. But the process in Oregon is notable in several ways, including an early attention to malapportionment, the use of the initiative to reform the process, and and the impact of women leaders on the redistricting process. The Oregon process, however, has also notably lagged behind other states, particularly in considering issues of race and minority representation and preventing gerrymandering.

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The Long Red Thread

How Democratic Dominance Gave Way to Republican Advantage in US House Elections

Kyle Kondik

Ohio University Press, 2021

An incisive study that shows how Republicans transformed the US House of Representatives into a consistent GOP stronghold—with or without a majority. Long-term Democratic dominance in the US House of Representatives gave way to a Republican electoral advantage and frequently held majority following the GOP takeover in 1994. Republicans haven’t always held the majority in recent decades, but nationalization, partisan realignment, and the gerrymandering of House seats have contributed to a political climate in which they've had an edge more often than not for nearly thirty years. The Long Red Thread examines each House election cycle from 1964 to 2020, surveying academic and journalistic literature to identify key trends and takeaways from more than a half-century of US House election results in order to predict what Americans can expect to see in the future.

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Partisan Gerrymandering and the Construction of American Democracy

Erik J. Engstrom

University of Michigan Press, 2016

Erik J. Engstrom offers a historical perspective on the effects of gerrymandering on elections and party control of the U.S. national legislature. Aside from the requirements that districts be continuous and, after 1842, that each select only one representative, there were few restrictions on congressional districting. Unrestrained, state legislators drew and redrew districts to suit their own partisan agendas. With the rise of the “one-person, one-vote” doctrine and the implementation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, however, redistricting became subject to court oversight.

Engstrom evaluates the abundant cross-sectional and temporal variation in redistricting plans and their electoral results from all the states, from 1789 through the 1960s, to identify the causes and consequences of partisan redistricting. His analysis reveals that districting practices across states and over time systematically affected the competitiveness of congressional elections; shaped the partisan composition of congressional delegations; and, on occasion, determined party control of the House of Representatives.

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Race, Redistricting, and Representation

The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts

David T. Canon

University of Chicago Press, 1999

Since the creation of minority-dominated congressional districts eight years ago, the Supreme Court has condemned the move as akin to "political apartheid," while many African-American leaders argue that such districts are required for authentic representation.

In the most comprehensive treatment of the subject to date, David Canon shows that the unintended consequences of black majority districts actually contradict the common wisdom that whites will not be adequately represented in these areas. Not only do black candidates need white votes to win, but this crucial "swing" vote often decides the race. And, once elected, even the black members who appeal primarily to black voters usually do a better job than white members of walking the racial tightrope, balancing the needs of their diverse constituents.

Ultimately, Canon contends, minority districting is good for the country as a whole. These districts not only give African Americans a greater voice in the political process, they promote a politics of commonality—a biracial politics—rather than a politics of difference.

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Representation Rights and the Burger Years

Nancy Maveety

University of Michigan Press, 1991

In Representation Rights and the Burger Years, political scientist Nancy Maveety tackles the constitutional meaning of "fair and effective" representation rights and evaluates the specific contributions that the Supreme Court made to this definition during the Burger era.

The Court of Chief Justice Warren Burger has been described as one that made no distinctive jurisprudential contributions. It has been dismissed as a court overshadowed by both its predecessor and its successor. By contrast, Maveety argues that the Burger Court in fact revolutionized constitutional understandings of political representation, expanding, in particular, the judicial scrutiny of political institutions. Moving beyond the "one person, one vote" reapportionment initiated by the Warren Court, it opened the way for the articulation of group-based constitutional representation rights.

This group-based approach to representation questions broadened groups' constitutional claims to equal political influence. Yet, as Maveety perceptively shows, this broader interpretation of "representable interests" was grounded in mainstream American conceptions of political representation. The great value of Maveety's study is the presentation of a "typology of group representation," which explains and validates the Burger Court's work on representation rights. This typology, drawn from American history, political theory, and political practice, offers a new approach for evaluating the precedental record of the Burger years and a sophisticated framework for understanding the interaction between constitutional law and politics.

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Rotten Boroughs, Political Thickets, and Legislative Donnybrooks

Redistricting in Texas

Edited by Gary A. Keith

University of Texas Press, 2013

Every ten years, the Texas legislature redistricts itself and the state’s congressional districts in an attempt to ensure equality in representation. With a richly textured cultural fabric, Texas often experiences redistricting battles that are heated enough to gain national attention. Collecting a variety of voices, including legislators themselves, in addition to lawyers, community organizers, political historians, and political scientists, Rotten Boroughs, Political Thickets, and Legislative Donnybrooks delivers a multidimensional picture of how redistricting works in Texas today, and how the process evolved.

In addition to editor Gary Keith’s historical narrative, which emphasizes the aftermath of the Warren Court’s redistricting decisions, longtime litigators David Richards and J. D. Pauerstein describe the contentious lines drawn from the 1970s into the 2000s. Former state legislator and congressman Craig Washington provides an insider’s view, while redistricting attorney and grassroots organizer Jose Garza describes the repercussions for Mexican Americans in Texas. Balancing these essays with a quantitative perspective, political scientists Seth McKee and Mark McKenzie analyze the voting data for the 2000 decade to describe the outcomes of redistricting. The result is a timely tour that provides up-to-date context, particularly on the role of the Voting Rights Act in the twenty-first century. From local community engagement to the halls of the Capitol, this is the definitive portrait of redistricting and its repercussions for all Texans.

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Sizing Up the Senate

The Unequal Consequences of Equal Representation

Frances E. Lee and Bruce I. Oppenheimer

University of Chicago Press, 1999

We take it for granted that every state has two representatives in the United States Senate. Apply the "one person, one vote" standard, however, and the Senate is the most malapportioned legislature in the democratic world.

But does it matter that California's 32 million people have the same number of Senate votes as Wyoming's 480,000? Frances Lee and Bruce Oppenheimer systematically show that the Senate's unique apportionment scheme profoundly shapes legislation and representation. The size of a state's population affects the senator-constituent relationship, fund-raising and elections, strategic behavior within the Senate, and, ultimately, policy decisions. They also show that less populous states consistently receive more federal funding than states with more people. In sum, Lee and Oppenheimer reveal that Senate apportionment leaves no aspect of the institution untouched.

This groundbreaking book raises new questions about one of the key institutions of American government and will interest anyone concerned with issues of representation.

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