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Author: Alex Keena
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009002554
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
State legislatures are tasked with drawing state and federal districts and administering election law, among many other responsibilities. Yet state legislatures are themselves gerrymandered. This book examines how, why, and with what consequences, drawing on an original dataset of ninety-five state legislative maps from before and after 2011 redistricting. Identifying the institutional, political, and geographic determinants of gerrymandering, the authors find that Republican gerrymandering increased dramatically after the 2011 redistricting and bias was most extreme in states with racial segregation where Republicans drew the maps. This bias has had long-term consequences. For instance, states with the most extreme Republican gerrymandering were more likely to pass laws that restricted voting rights and undermined public health, and they were less likely to respond to COVID-19. The authors examine the implications for American democracy and for the balance of power between federal and state government; they also offer empirically grounded recommendations for reform.
Author: Alex Keena
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009002554
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Get Book Here
Book Description
State legislatures are tasked with drawing state and federal districts and administering election law, among many other responsibilities. Yet state legislatures are themselves gerrymandered. This book examines how, why, and with what consequences, drawing on an original dataset of ninety-five state legislative maps from before and after 2011 redistricting. Identifying the institutional, political, and geographic determinants of gerrymandering, the authors find that Republican gerrymandering increased dramatically after the 2011 redistricting and bias was most extreme in states with racial segregation where Republicans drew the maps. This bias has had long-term consequences. For instance, states with the most extreme Republican gerrymandering were more likely to pass laws that restricted voting rights and undermined public health, and they were less likely to respond to COVID-19. The authors examine the implications for American democracy and for the balance of power between federal and state government; they also offer empirically grounded recommendations for reform.
Author: Anthony J. McGann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316589331
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269
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Book Description
This book considers the political and constitutional consequences of Vieth v. Jubelirer (2004), where the Supreme Court held that partisan gerrymandering challenges could no longer be adjudicated by the courts. Through a rigorous scientific analysis of US House district maps, the authors argue that partisan bias increased dramatically in the 2010 redistricting round after the Vieth decision, both at the national and state level. From a constitutional perspective, unrestrained partisan gerrymandering poses a critical threat to a central pillar of American democracy, popular sovereignty. State legislatures now effectively determine the political composition of the US House. The book answers the Court's challenge to find a new standard for gerrymandering that is both constitutionally grounded and legally manageable. It argues that the scientifically rigorous partisan symmetry measure is an appropriate legal standard for partisan gerrymandering, as it logically implies the constitutional right to individual equality and can be practically applied.
Author: Erik J. Engstrom
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 047211901X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237
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Book Description
Since the nation’s founding, the strategic manipulation of congressional districts has influenced American politics and public policy
Author: Nick Seabrook
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 0593315863
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
A redistricting crisis is now upon us. This surprising, compelling book tells the history of how we got to this moment—from the Founding Fathers to today’s high-tech manipulation of election districts—and shows us as well how to protect our most sacred, hard-fought principle of one person, one vote. Here is THE book on gerrymandering for citizens, politicians, journalists, activists, and voters. “Seabrook’s lucid account of the origins and evolution of gerrymandering—the deliberate and partisan doctoring of district borders for electoral advantage—makes a potentially dry, wonky subject accessible and engaging for a broad audience.” —The New York Times Gerrymandering is the manipulation of election districts for partisan and political gain. Instead of voters picking the politicians they want, politicians pick the voters they need to get the election results they’re after. Surprisingly, gerrymandering has been around since before our nation’s founding. And with technology, those drawing the redistricting lines have, now more than ever, been able to microtarget their electoral manipulations with unprecedented levels of precision. Nick Seabrook, an authority on constitutional and election law and an expert on gerrymandering (pronounced with a hard G!), has written an illuminating, urgently needed book on how our elections have been rigged through redistricting, beginning with the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, and extending to the twentieth century’s gerrymandering battles at the Supreme Court and today’s high-tech manipulations of election districts. Seabrook writes of Patrick Henry, who used redistricting to settle an old score with political foe and fellow Founding Father James Madison (almost preventing the Bill of Rights from happening). He writes of Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, and corrects the mistaken notion of the derivation of the term “gerrymander.” He writes of Abraham Lincoln and how his desire to preserve the Union led him to manipulate the admission of new states in order to maintain his majority in the Senate. And we come to understand the place of the Supreme Court in its fierce battles regarding gerrymandering throughout the twentieth century. First was Felix Frankfurter, who fought for decades to prevent the judiciary from involving itself in disputes concerning the drawing of districts. Then came the Warren Court and its series of civil rights cases culminating in the landmark decision (Reynolds v. Sims), written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, which says that state legislatures, unlike the United States Congress, must have representation in both houses based on districts containing equal populations—with redistricting as needed following each census. The result has been ever-increasing, hard-fought wrangling between the two political parties after each census. Seabrook explores the rise of the most partisan gerrymanders in American history, put into place by the Republican Party after the 2010 census, and how the battle has shifted to the states via REDMAP—the GOP’s successful strategy of the last decade to control state governments and rig the results of state legislative and congressional elections.
Author: J. Michael Bitzer
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030807479
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 168
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Book Description
This book gives a historical and contemporary overview of the redistricting process, using North Carolina for the different political, electoral, and legal issues and debates over the practice of drawing legislative district boundaries. Redistricting has been characterized as “the most political activity in America,” and North Carolina has often been at the heart of recent controversies over this particular activity. In fact, the Tar Heel state was once described as “long notorious for (its) outrageous reapportionment.” Through legislative construction to significant legal challenges, the Tar Heel state has been a noted case study for the past thirty years. From the contentious issues of redistricting principles to the matters of gerrymandering, based on race and politics, North Carolina’s past three decades have seen major U.S. Supreme Court cases deal with redistricting controversies. By exploring this state’s dealings with gerrymandering and redistricting, readers will have a better sense of the dynamics facing the nation as it confronts the 2020 Census and the subsequent redistricting efforts in 2021.
Author: Charles S. Bullock
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 153814963X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
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Book Description
A 2022 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title This authoritative overview of election redistricting at the congressional, state legislative, and local level provides offers an overview of redistricting for students and practitioners. The updated second edition pays special attention to the significant redistricting controversies of the last decade, from the Supreme Court to state courts.
Author: Thomas Brunell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135925216
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 158
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Book Description
Pundits have observed that if so many incumbents are returned to Congress to each election by such wide margins, perhaps we should look for ways to increase competitiveness – a centerpiece to the American way of life – through redistricting. Do competitive elections increase voter satisfaction? How does voting for a losing candidate affect voters’ attitudes toward government? The not-so-surprising conclusion is that losing voters are less satisfied with Congress and their Representative, but the implications for the way in which we draw congressional and state legislative districts are less straightforward. Redistricting and Representation argues that competition in general elections is not the sine qua non of healthy democracy, and that it in fact contributes to the low levels of approval of Congress and its members. Brunell makes the case for a radical departure from traditional approaches to redistricting – arguing that we need to "pack" districts with as many like-minded partisans as possible, maximizing the number of winning voters, not losers.
Author: Steven Mulroy
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1788117514
Category : Election law
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
Recent U.S. elections have defied nationwide majority preference at the White House, Senate, and House levels. This work of interdisciplinary scholarship explains how “winner-take-all” and single-member district elections make this happen, and what can be done to repair the system. Proposed reforms include the National Popular Vote interstate compact (presidential elections); eliminating the Senate filibuster; and proportional representation using Ranked Choice Voting for House, state, and local elections.
Author: Brent Tarter
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813943206
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Many are aware that gerrymandering exists and suspect it plays a role in our elections, but its history goes far deeper, and its impacts are far greater, than most realize. In his latest book, Brent Tarter focuses on Virginia's long history of gerrymandering to uncover its immense influence on the state's politics and to provide perspective on how the practice impacts politics nationally. Offering the first in-depth historical study of gerrymanders in Virginia, Tarter exposes practices going back to nineteenth century and colonial times and explains how they protected land owners' and slave owners' interests. The consequences of redistricting and reapportionment in modern Virginia--in effect giving a partisan minority the upper hand in all public policy decisions--become much clearer in light of this history. Where the discussion of gerrymandering has typically emphasized political parties' control of Congress, Tarter focuses on the state legislatures that determine congressional district lines and, in most states, even those of their own districts. On the eve of the 2021 session of the General Assembly, which will redraw district lines for Virginia's state Senate and House of Delegates, as well as for the U.S. House of Representatives, Tarter's book provides an eye-opening investigation of gerrymandering and its pervasive effect on our local, state, and national politics and government.
Author: Benjamin E. Griffith
Publisher: American Bar Association
ISBN: 9781590319727
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 420
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Book Description
This book is a snapshot of America's voting and electoral practices, problems, and most current issues. The book addresses a variety of fundamental areas concerning election law from a federal perspective such as the Help America Vote Act, lessons learned from the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, voter identification, and demographic and statistical experts in election litigation, and more. It is a useful guide for lawyers as well as law school professors, election officials, state and local government personnel, and election workers.
