In 1812, Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a bill that reshaped his state’s electoral districts to benefit his party. The resulting map included a district so contorted that the Boston Gazette likened it to a salamander. Thus, the term “gerrymander” was born — a portmanteau of Governor Gerry’s surname and the word “salamander.” But what exactly does this mean for our democracy today?
For the House of Representatives, congressional districts increasingly determine who appears on ballots and their chances of election. That the organization of electoral maps can so greatly impact electoral outcomes may not be apparent, given that their composition, area, and location are, in most cases, decided long before elections take place. Nevertheless, some of these districts are shaped rather oddly — on purpose.
Consider Texas’s 35th District. In 2021, Republican mapmakers connected liberal communities in a snake-like corridor spanning 90 miles across central Texas. The Partisan Voting Index (PVI) — a measure of the partisan composition— for this district stands in stark contrast to the Republican districts that surround it. Texas’s overall efficiency gap — a measure of each party’s “wasted votes” — is R+15.8, indicating the map substantially favors Republicans.
Democrats play the same game. Illinois’ 17th District encompasses liberal cities over 120 miles away to create its iconic “C” shape. With the implementation of this new map, the 17th district moved drastically from R+5 to D+4, a nine-point partisan swing. Unsurprisingly, Illinois’s overall efficiency gap is D+13.2, evidencing the map favors Democrats.
Both of these districts are textbook instances of gerrymandering, a practice by which the party in power in a given state’s legislature manipulates district maps to produce an outcome that is favorable to itself. In 40 states, state legislatures ultimately determine district composition and pass maps by a simple majority vote. Under this system, drawing district maps can never be a truly nonpartisan practice.
Regardless of political party, gerrymandered maps are inherently unfair. As intended tools of representative democracy, electoral maps serve as the means by which constituencies elect their representatives. As such, a map is fair if it accurately reflects a region’s electoral makeup through proportional representation of parties.
Political pundits have offered several “solutions” to end gerrymandering and uphold electoral justice. For example, states such as Arizona, California, Colorado, and Michigan have passed anti-gerrymandering state constitutional amendments that give commissions independent of the legislature the power to draw the state’s maps.
However, such solutions fail to address the fundamental problem underlying gerrymandering. Ultimately, the majority party of each state wants to enact a map that will benefit itself. If elections are battles to gain or lose influence, to control a congressional map is to have the high ground.
It is time that federal district drawers face the “districter’s dilemma”: a political prisoner’s dilemma that keeps gerrymandering a recurring problem in the U.S.
A prisoner’s dilemma is a thought experiment involving two rational agents who can cooperate for mutual gain or betray the other for greater individual gain. Here’s how it works: When drawing state federal maps, each party has to make several decisions. If they both, as independent rational actors, choose to draw fair maps, they each produce fair maps that they would prefer as their second choice. If one chooses to gerrymander and the other chooses not to, the party which gerrymanders gains a political advantage, which is most preferable to the gerrymanderer and least preferable to the other party. If both parties choose to gerrymander, they would end up with a decision that neither prefers.
The following table visualizes this dilemma:
Suppose Jessica is a map drawer for the majority party in her state. She does not know whether or not the parties in other states will choose to draw fair maps. Given such uncertainty, it would be better for Jessica to gerrymander because her party will gain national political influence. Furthermore, if the parties in other states choose to draw gerrymandered maps, it would still be advantageous for Jessica to gerrymander to ensure her party is not at a political disadvantage.
With the districter’s dilemma, it is collectively rational to cooperate and draw fair maps in the name of fairness. However, it is individually rational to not cooperate and gerrymander.
Evidence of the districter’s dilemma plays out in every U.S. census when mapmakers convene to draw their maps. In 2022, Republican states with egregiously gerrymandered maps — in terms of either efficiency gap or proportionality — included Texas, Florida, and Wisconsin. To balance out their party’s disadvantage in such maps, states with Democratic majorities such as Illinois, New York, and New Mexico enacted defensive gerrymanders, which are just as egregious. Overall, the partisan balance of state maps summed up nationally to be more or less equal.
While gerrymandering between states may cancel out nationally, the districter’s dilemma shows that such a result does not benefit any party on the national level. Furthermore, the tenets of representative democracy are violated when the closest representative that shares the same ideology lives in a different state.
Solving gerrymandering is an equally confounding question. Many current solutions require partisan actors to both draw and pass maps, which does not avoid the districter’s dilemma. For example, the New York legislature, by law, takes control of the mapping process if the commission cannot agree or the legislature rejects the maps, as they did this February.
The fundamental problem is that current gerrymandering solutions do not consider cross-state advantages. While it is certainly fair to enact a commission to draw fairer maps in one state, it puts a party in that state at a disadvantage nationally. The districter’s dilemma thus demonstrates that a true solution to gerrymandering must both address unfair districting within states and establish an interstate solution.
In light of this, I propose an interstate compact that may help resolve the districter’s dilemma.
Let’s return to Jessica’s scenario. Instead of drawing partisan and gerrymandered maps because of the districter’s dilemma, she can reach out to Simon, who is a map drawer for a different state and political party. Jessica and Simon can make a pact: If Simon’s state passes fair maps, then her state will also pass fair maps. These maps must yield a similar partisan seat balance per party based on that state’s electorate. The map passed by Simon’s state will contain a reciprocity clause. If Jessica’s state fails to pass a fair map, the legislature in Simon’s state will reconvene to draw a new map or institute a backup plan.
This solution provides a unique opportunity for states to draw fair maps without disadvantaging the party at the federal level. It would also ensure that if states do not comply with the fairness requirement, neither party will be disadvantaged.
A chain of districting pacts would allow each state to draw fair maps with the reassurance that they will not be disadvantaged if they do not gerrymander. This interstate framework would be highly effective at addressing gerrymandering if ever enacted. However, it is important to note that substantial changes in our political landscape would likely need to occur first. Gerrymandering is a complex practice and knowledge about map drawing is scarce: Over 55% of surveyed Americans are unsure about their feelings on the redistricting process.
As the 2024 election draws near, the current congressional maps will likely remain in place. It may be too late to change any of these maps now, but in the name of representative democracy, the practice of gerrymandering must come to an end.
