Proofiness - Charles Seife [70]
Gerrymandering is a direct affront to the democratic process; by allowing politicians to cherry-pick votes, it systematically undermines the validity of elections. But it’s not easy to get rid of, because the issue is fiendishly complex. For many years, the federal court system more or less decided not to touch the issue at all, declaring it something that should be fought over by politicians rather than by judges. But the courts couldn’t ignore it indefinitely, because gerrymandering was gnawing at fundamental constitutional rights.
The U.S. Constitution dictates that each state gets a number of seats in the House of Representatives proportional to the population of each state. As the population grows and shifts, the representation has to change, so states need to change the boundaries of their voting districts in response to new census numbers every decade. (These census numbers are also subject to proofiness—more on this shortly.) However, the power to change those boundaries isn’t absolute. It’s constrained by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Ratified shortly after the end of the Civil War, the amendment guarantees that all citizens are given “equal protection” by the laws of the land. That is, each citizen is seen as equal in the eyes of the law—which in theory means that each person’s vote should have the same value. By the 1960s, the courts were forced to recognize that gerrymandering, in some circumstances, was making certain citizens’ votes count less than others’—some people’s votes were being diluted. Judges couldn’t continue ignoring the issue, thanks largely to the civil rights movement.
Shortly after the end of the Civil War, former slaves were suddenly full citizens—and like other citizens, they were entitled to vote and given the same protection under the law as any other citizen. That’s the way it was on paper. In reality, though, former slave-owning states used all sorts of tricks, such as poll taxes, that were designed to keep African Americans away from the voting booths. (More on this later in the chapter.) They also used gerrymandering, cracking populations of African Americans so that they didn’t get any representation in Congress. Despite constitutional guarantees, African Americans were being treated as second-class citizens.
In the mid-1960s, however, the civil rights movement changed the political landscape. Legislators and the courts finally attacked the problem head-on, outlawing the dirty tricks of racist politics. The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution outlawed poll taxes. A set of court decisions set the “one person, one vote” standard that dictates that each citizen’s vote must be given roughly equal weight. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed procedures—including gerrymandering—intended to deny citizens their voting rights based on race or color. This made gerrymandering illegal, but only when it’s done for racist motives.68 Political gerrymandering—redistricting to gain political advantage—was still perfectly fine.
It would be simple except for the fact that race and politics can’t be disentangled. In modern times, African-American voters are overwhelmingly Democratic. Latino voters also tend to support Democrats. So issues of race are always deeply political. Protecting the voting power of minorities is more or less tantamount to helping out the Democrats.69 Making a distinction between racial gerrymandering and political gerrymandering is somewhat artificial. Even ignoring that fact, political gerrymandering is diluting citizens’ votes just as surely as racial gerrymandering is.
Redistricting law, to put it politely, is a mess. The Supreme Court has been writhing in self-contradictory paroxysms trying to avoid addressing the issue. After years of pretending that political gerrymandering wasn’t a topic suitable for lawsuits, in a 1986 decision