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391

NUTS

& B O LT S

11 .1

Redistricting

The new 9th district

Previous Districts

10th—Dennis Kucinich

nottuSytteB—ht31

9th—Marcy Kaptur

The new 4th

congressional district

Chicago

Types of Gerrymanders

We have learned that the redistricting process is a powerful

tool politicians can use to help their party, or individual

members, win and maintain seats in Congress. Let’s look at

two key types of gerrymandering.

Partisan gerrymanders

Elected officials from one party draw district lines that

benefit candidates from their party and hurt candidates

from other parties. This usually occurs when one party has

majorities in both houses of the state legislature and occupies

the governorship and can therefore enact redistricting

legislation without input from the minority party.

After the 2010 census, Ohio lost two

seats in Congress (see our discussion of

apportionment on page 389). Republicans

controlled the redistricting process and

wanted the loss of seats to come from

the Democrats. So the Republicans drew

a new 9th congressional district that cut

across the districts of three existing

Democratic members of Congress.

Obviously only one could win the

Democratic primary—that happened

to be Marcy Kaptur. Democrats Kucinich

and Sutton had to leave Congress.

Racial gerrymanders

Redistricting is used to help or hurt the chances of minority

legislative candidates. The Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965

mandated that districting plans for many parts of the South be

approved by the U.S. Department of Justice or a Washington,

D.C., district court. Subsequent interpretations of the 1982 VRA

amendments and Supreme Court decisions led to the creation

of districts in which racial minorities are in the majority. The aim

of these majority-minority districts was to raise the percentage

of African-American and Latino elected officials.

Illinois’s 4th congressional district is a

clear example of racial gerrymandering. The

district has a very odd shape, but it incorpo-

rates two heavily Latino areas. (The north-

ern part has a high Puerto Rican population

and the southern part is largely Mexican;

both areas are heavily Democratic.) This

district is a stronghold of Democrat Luis

Gutiérrez, who is of Puerto Rican descent,

and is seen as a safe district for Democrats.

Congress and the people

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