206 PART THREE • iNsTiTuTioNs oF AMERiCAN govERNMENT
Gerrymandering
The drawing of legislative
district boundary lines for
the purpose of obtaining
partisan advantage.
A district is said to be
gerrymandered when
its shape is altered
substantially to determine
which party will win it.the basis of Article I, Section 2, of the Constitution, which requires that members of the
House be chosen “by the People of the several States.”^5
As a result of severe malapportionment of congressional districts before 1964, some
districts contained two or three times the population of other districts in the same state,
thereby diluting the effect of a vote cast in the more populous districts. This system gener-
ally benefited the conservative residents of rural areas and small towns and harmed the
interests of the more heavily populated and liberal cities.gerrymandering
Although the general issue of apportionment has been dealt with fairly successfully by
the one person, one vote principle, the gerrymandering issue has not yet been resolved.
This term refers to the tactics that were used under Elbridge Gerry, the governor of
Massachusetts, in the 1812 elections to draw legislative boundaries (see Figure 9–1 on
the facing page). A district is said to have been gerrymandered when its shape is altered
substantially to determine which party will win it.
In 1986, the Supreme Court heard a case that challenged gerrymandered congressio-
nal districts in Indiana. The Court ruled for the first time that redistricting for the political
benefit of one group could be challenged on constitutional grounds. In this specific case,
Davis v. Bandemer,^6 however, the Court did not agree that the districts had been drawnTABLE 9–3: The Power of incumbency
election Year
1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012
house
Number of incumbent
candidates 394 409 406 368 387 384 402 403 393 404 405 404 397 390
Reelected 385 402 390 325 349 361 395 394 383 397 382 381 338 351
Percentage of total 97.7 98.3 96.0 88.3 90.2 94.0 98.3 97.8 97.5 98.3 94.3 94.3 85.1 80.7
Defeated 9 7 16 43 38 23 7 9 10 7 23 23 59 39
In primary 3 1 1 19 4 2 1 3 3 1 2 5 4 14
In general election 6 6 15 24 34 21 6 6 7 6 21 18 55 25
senate
Number of incumbent
candidates 28 27 32 28 26 21 29 29 28 26 29 30 24 23
Reelected 21 23 31 23 24 19 26 23 24 25 23 26 20 21
Percentage of total 75.0 85.2 96.9 82.1 92.3 90.5 89.7 79.3 85.7 96.2 79.3 86.7 83.3 91.3
Defeated 7 4 1 5 2 2 3 6 4 1 6 4 4 2
In primary 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1* 0 3* 1
In general election 7 4 1 4 2 1 3 6 3 1 6 3 2 1*In 2006, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut lost the Democratic primary but won the general election as an independent. He then caucused
with the Democrats. In 2010, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski lost the Republican primary but won the general election as a write-in candidate.
She continued to caucus with the Republicans.
Sources: Norman Ornstein, Thomas E. Mann, and Michael J. Malbin, Vital Statistics on Congress, 2008 (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings
Institution Press; Rev. edition, 2008); and authors’ updates.- Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964).
- 478 U.S. 109 (1986).
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