Definition and mechanics
Gerrymandering refers to the practice whereby those responsible for drawing electoral districts manipulate boundaries “in order to achieve their preferred political outcome.” Often the preferred outcome is that the mapmakers themselves and their allies get re-elected; the practice is also used by the party in power “to keep their majority, to guarantee that however the people end up voting in subsequent elections … they get to stay in power.” Midterm Elections Special: The Surprising History of Gerrymandering (2022)
The concept presumes districts. Nick Seabrook, a professor of political science and public administration at the University of North Florida, explained that representative democracies can be structured either through proportional representation—where voters choose a party list rather than a candidate, and the top names on the list fill however many seats the party wins—or through districts, which forge a link between a representative and a geographically defined community. A district-based system divides a jurisdiction into discrete units whose voters have a shared identity and a consensus of interest; the representative’s job is to serve those constituents and vote accordingly. Gerrymandering, Seabrook said, “either disrupts or sometimes severs that link.” Midterm Elections Special: The Surprising History of Gerrymandering (2022)
The origin story credits Elbridge Gerry, the governor of Massachusetts, who in 1812 sought to consolidate his own power against Federalists in the state Senate. Rather than equalizing populations across districts, he manipulated who lived in them, “packing as many Federalists as possible into a single district in Essex County” where they already held an overwhelming majority, which allowed his Democratic-Republicans to win all the other districts. Packing is one of the most common techniques of gerrymandering. Midterm Elections Special: The Surprising History of Gerrymandering (2022)
Across episodes
Both episodes proceed from the same premise—that gerrymandering breaks the link between voter and representative—but they treat it at different levels. In the 2022-10-31 episode, Bob Zadek describes the essence of democracy as voters picking their leaders and says that in America today “our leaders get to pick their voters as a result of the pernicious practice of Gerrymandering,” framing the episode around history, problems, and a solution. Seabrook, his guest, supplies the historical account running back to the English “rotten boroughs,” where districts were configured with fewer than a dozen voters and landowners used bribery and patronage to elect candidates of their choice; as long as districts have existed, he argues, those in power have manipulated them. Midterm Elections Special: The Surprising History of Gerrymandering (2022)
In the 2022-08-22 episode, Ned Foley of the Constitution Center moves directly from the definition to remedies, and Bob Zadek notes he has presented a gerrymandering cure of his own that was “almost identical” to Foley’s. Zadek’s figure: “96% of the seats are uncompetitive through gerrymandering,” making the House “fake democracy.” Foley’s remedy is what he calls “self-districting”: giving voters the power to identify what district they want to be in, rather than letting politicians draw the boundaries. This is closer, he says, to proportional representation as used in parliamentary systems, but might appeal to Americans attached to self-government. Enhancing Trust in Democracy (2022)
The two episodes thus share a diagnosis and diverge on remedy: Seabrook’s account emphasizes history and the persistence of the practice across regime changes, while Foley’s emphasizes structural reform within the existing system. Where both episodes meet is on the effect on competition: Foley argues gerrymandering makes congressional races uncompetitive, and Zadek calls it the most serious kind of problem because it “breaks the link between voter and representative.” Enhancing Trust in Democracy (2022)
Consequences
Foley testified to the specific danger of uncompetitive districts. Using competitiveness as a measure, political scientists have found the loss of competitive districts has been “particularly acute” in the most recent round of redistricting. That loss makes the House of Representatives “the least responsive” to voters’ changing views, despite being the body designed to be most directly responsive. Enhancing Trust in Democracy (2022)
Beyond the distortion of representation, Foley argued gerrymandering creates a cultural environment “where politicians think they can manipulate any kind of rule to hold on to power.” Though the refusal to count electoral votes around January 6th “isn’t an act of gerrymandering per se,” Foley said it is a product of gerrymandering, both in terms of who occupies the seats in the House who engage in election denialism and in terms of “the mindset that subversion is what we do to hold power.” Enhancing Trust in Democracy (2022)
The problem, as Seabrook frames it, is that gerrymandering adapts. “As soon as we have had districts,” he said, there have been those in power manipulating them. The framers did take steps against the British system—allocating House seats between states on the basis of population, and early legislation requiring members to be elected from districts with roughly equal numbers of inhabitants—but in so doing “opened the door to a different kind of Gerrymandering,” one that operates even when district populations are approximately equal. Gerrymandering, he said, is “kind of a many-headed monster,” and cutting off one head produces another. Midterm Elections Special: The Surprising History of Gerrymandering (2022)
Proposed reforms
On the 2022-08-22 episode Foley put forward self-districting: each citizen could “sign up to be in this district, not that district,” choosing a district rather than having politicians choose for them. Because the requirement to have districts is not in the Constitution but rather an act of Congress first adopted (as Foley recalled) in 1842, and because some states in the old days—New Jersey in the 1830s, with six or seven House seats—elected all their representatives statewide, at-large elections represent another possible direction; Congress could undo its requirement. Enhancing Trust in Democracy (2022)
Foley raised a caution about both approaches. A random or statewide scheme would produce districts that mirror the state’s demographics as a whole, functioning like multiple statewide elections. The question is whether legislative debate is better served by a diversity of voices—farmers, workers, people who live in the north or south, older and younger people—or by every representative mimicking the same majority. On that point Foley invited Zadek’s view. Enhancing Trust in Democracy (2022)
Zadek mentioned that no one has adopted his own districting cure and that he receives few emails on the subject. He framed the reform demand as cyclical: gerrymandering draws attention every ten years when a new census arrives, because governors control the legislatures and legislatures control districting, but the public then forgets about it for another decade. Enhancing Trust in Democracy (2022)
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not supply the case names, statutory provisions, or constitutional holdings that the practice of gerrymandering has generated; Seabrook’s mention of the Supreme Court appears in the episode’s topic list but not in the material here. Nor do they describe the technology of modern map-drawing beyond the episode’s summary mention of a “modern technological shift” in the introduction to the 2022-10-31 episode. The excerpts also do not state which states have adopted independent citizen commissions, though Seabrook’s episode lists commissions among its topics. Finally, the 2022-10-31 excerpt breaks off before Seabrook discusses solutions in detail.