Outside of federal law, only four states apply the same criteria to congressional redistricting. Another near-universal rule for the redistricting process is contiguity. An electoral district is contiguous if one can travel from any point in the district to any other point without having to cross its boundary.
Some exceptions to the contiguity rule are permitted by federal courts if a reasonable context exists, such as separation by rivers, lakes, or seas. Besides federal legal requirements, 18 states require contiguity for congressional districts.
States often require district lines to follow underlying political boundaries like county, city, town, or ward lines. In 15 states , there is a requirement that congressional districts follow existing political boundaries at least somewhat. In 17 states , there is a requirement that congressional districts be compact.
Only seven states appear to identify a specific measure of compactness. States often emphasize preserving communities of interest as a redistricting criteria. These are a group of people with a common interest, be it economic, social, or otherwise.
In 11 states , consideration is given to keeping communities of interest undivided when drawing new congressional districts. Finally, some states restrict redistricting with the intent of producing partisan outcomes. Partisan redistricting occurs when electoral districts are drawn to favor or disfavor candidates of a certain party, or when districts substantially favor incumbent politicians over challengers. Efforts to restrict partisan redistricting have not fared well in federal courts.
The Supreme Court explicitly allows the drawing of district lines to intentionally benefit incumbent politicians as well as redistricting to slightly advantage some partisan outcomes over others. Montana would use a redistricting commission if it receives an additional House seat. Historically, and in the majority of states today, congressional district boundaries are primarily determined by state legislatures. Currently, 37 states authorize their state legislatures to establish congressional district boundaries.
Most of these states enable the governor to veto a redistricting plan created by the legislature; Connecticut and North Carolina do not allow a gubernatorial veto.
Other states, in recent years, have begun to use redistricting commissions, which may be more removed from state legislative politics.
In five other states Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Utah, and Virginia , a commission serves in an advisory capacity during the redistricting process. Commissions may also be used as a "backup" or alternate means of redistricting if the legislature's plan is not enacted, such as in Connecticut, Indiana, and Ohio. The composition of congressional redistricting commissions can also vary; many include members of the public selected by a method intended to be nonpartisan or bipartisan, whereas other commissions may include political appointees or elected officials, such as in Hawaii and New Jersey.
A commission's membership, the authority granted to it, its relationship to other state government entities, and other features may affect whether a commission is perceived to be undertaking an objective process or a more politicized one. Some proponents of redistricting commissions believe that using independent redistricting commissions can prevent opportunities for partisan gerrymandering and may create more competitive and representative districts.
The timeline for redistricting also varies across states, and can be affected by state or federal requirements regarding the redistricting process; the efficiency of the legislature, commission, or other entities involved in drawing a state's districts; and, potentially, by legal or political challenges made to a drafted or enacted redistricting plan.
Many states complete the process within the next year. After the reapportionment, for example, Iowa was the first state to complete its initial congressional redistricting plan on March 31, , and 31 other states completed their initial plans by the end of The remaining 11 states with multiple congressional districts completed their initial redistricting plans by the middle of , with Kansas becoming the final state to complete its initial plan on June 7, Although redistricting processes in practice today are largely governed by state law, Congress has, at times, considered an expanded federal government role, which could serve to standardize certain elements of the redistricting process across states.
Given the historically limited role the federal government has played in the redistricting process, concerns about federalism may arise in the context of certain congressional efforts addressing redistricting. The types of legislative proposals briefly introduced in this section reflect some common examples of redistricting bills introduced in recent Congresses; they are not meant to be an exhaustive list of all the options Congress has considered or could consider related to redistricting.
Some legislative proposals in recent Congresses would establish criteria for districts, such as population equality, compactness, contiguity, or preservation of existing political subdivisions. Most of these bills have been referred to committee but not passed by either chamber. In the th Congress, H. Apportionment and redistricting address fundamental elements of representational democracy.
Determining how many elected representatives should serve in the House, and how many people should be in each congressional district, are central questions for those who are concerned with how responsive the House can be to the interests of the American public. During earlier eras in the United States, the number of seats in the House of Representatives generally increased as the American population increased, and district sizes could be kept more equal over time and across states.
The House size, however, has been set at seats throughout the last century, while the national population has continued to grow and concentrate in certain geographic areas, leading to larger constituencies across all House districts over time and disparate district sizes across states. Certain elements of the apportionment process are established by the U.
This includes the requirement for representation in the House based on state population size; the reallocation of House seats every 10 years upon the completion of a national population count; and the requirements that each state receives at least one Representative and that there can be no more than one Representative for every 30, persons. Other elements of the process are addressed through congressional legislation, such as the overall number of House seats or method of distributing seats among the states.
Congress more regularly legislated in this area prior to the mid th century, passing decennial acts to address upcoming censuses and apportionments, rather than creating bills intended to apply for all future reapportionment cycles. Whereas apportionment is a process largely governed by federal statute, redistricting is a process, in practice, largely governed by state law. Certain federal standards apply to House districts, generally in the interest of preserving equal access to representation, but the method and timeline by which those districts are created is largely determined by state law.
In states with multiple congressional districts, there are a multitude of ways in which district boundaries can be drawn, depending upon the criteria used to create the districts. There is often an expectation that congressional districts will be drawn in a way that ensures "fair" representation, but "fairness" can be a somewhat subjective determination. Many lawmakers and members of the public may agree on some of the more basic representational principles embedded in apportionment and redistricting law, but can find it difficult to apply those principles in practice.
The criteria commonly used for redistricting today reflect a combination of state and federal statutes, judicial interpretations, and practices from past redistricting cycles that may require trade-offs between one consideration and another. Ensuring equal population size across all congressional districts, for example, may be an agreeable goal for many individuals. In practice, however, the geographic and demographic distribution of residents within and across states, coupled with requirements to observe state boundaries, provide all states with at least one Representative, and maintain a constant number of House seats, make this goal more difficult to achieve.
Although mapmaking software today can design districts with increasing precision with respect to geographic boundaries and population characteristics, this technological capacity has not necessarily simplified the overall task of redistricting.
A majority of states faced legal challenges to congressional district maps drawn following the census, and several cases remained pending in , reflecting differing perspectives on fairness, representational access, and how competing redistricting criteria should be weighted.
Congress is a bicameral legislature, in which each state receives equal representation in the Senate and each state's representation in the House is based upon its population. Essentially, any method of apportionment for the House must consider three key variables: 1 the number of House seats; 2 the number of U. A mathematical decision must also be made regarding how fractions of seats are addressed, since House seats must be allocated as whole numbers, and simple division methods are unlikely to produce this outcome for all or any states.
Because the Constitution does not specify a particular method for apportionment, several options have been considered and utilized throughout history. When determining apportionment, parameters could be set for the number of seats in the House, the population size of a district, or both. Based on the number of states and U. As a general principle, House size and district size are inversely related: a larger number of House seats means smaller population sizes for districts, and a smaller number of House seats means larger population sizes for districts.
Attempts by the Framers and various Congresses to address apportionment reveal a number of perspectives on how best to create a representative legislature, along with political and logistical considerations related to changes in the size of the House. An apportionment method prioritizing relatively equal district population size would establish a representation ratio, where there would be one Representative per x number of persons.
If the ratio remains the same across apportionment cycles, increases or decreases in the U. The representation ratio could also be adjusted to create larger or smaller districts, in order to limit the magnitude of changes to the overall size of the House. If states receive fractional allocations of House seats and there is no constraint on the size of the House, a simple rounding rule could be utilized to arrive at a whole number of seats for the House overall.
A general example of an apportionment approach prioritizing relatively equal district size follows:. Until the early 20 th century, the size of the House generally increased with each apportionment, due to the addition of new states and population growth, 72 but today, the number of House seats is set at by federal statute. Yet concerns have also been raised that it would not be feasible to increase the House size apace with national population growth.
To be sure that a particular apportionment conforms to a specified size of the House, each state must receive a whole number of seats, and the sum of all states' seats must equal the desired total House size.
Many apportionment approaches vary on how to address fractional seats, as remainders will often result when calculating state seat quotas. A general example of an apportionment approach to reach a certain House size follows:.
The following discussions provide an introduction to several methods that have been used for congressional apportionment in the United States. To illustrate how these methods work, for each method an imaginary example is provided in the accompanying table, in which the size of the House is fixed at 20 Members and the seats are divided among four states states A, B, C, and D with the populations specified in the tables.
President George Washington, however, exercised his first veto on the measure, in part, because the resulting apportionment calculations would have violated the requirement of at least 30, persons per district for multiple states.
Each state receives the whole number of seats in its quota, q , of seats. The remainders from q are rank-ordered from largest to smallest, and any additional House seats are apportioned to the states with the largest remainders. Table A Source: Adapted from U. Following the presidential veto of the Hamilton method, Congress adopted the Jefferson method of apportionment, which was used from to The Jefferson method for apportionment is based on a fixed House size, H , and each state's quota of seats, q , is rounded down to the nearest whole number.
Often, the sum of the rounded-down q values is less than H. When this occurs, divisor values smaller than d are tested until an adjusted divisor, d adj , is found that results in a set of q values which, when rounded down, sum to H. Jefferson Method—Sample Apportionment. Step 1: Find seats if apportioned using initial divisor, d round down any q remainder.
Step 2: Apportion seats using adjusted divisor, d adj a. The regular divisor, d , is often used as a starting point to inform what values could work for an adjusted divisor, d adj. Here, is used as the adjusted divisor value, but any integer between or would also produce a series of q values that, when rounded down, sum to the total House size of 20 seats. Some believed that the Jefferson method favored large states, and the Webster method was an approach first used for apportionment in and last used for apportionment following the census.
Each state receives the whole number of seats in its quota, q ; then, q remainders greater than or equal to 0. The example provided in Table A-3 happens to result in the same number of House seats as the other examples in this appendix, which treat the House size, H , as fixed at 20 seats, but performing these initial calculations under the Webster method could result in a subsequent adjustment to the number of House seats.
Webster Method—Sample Apportionment. In addition to treating large and small states similarly, some have also believed that an apportionment method should minimize percentage differences in district population sizes across states as much as possible. The method of equal proportions, also known as the Huntington-Hill method, seeks to achieve this objective, and has been used for all House apportionments since This method differs from the Webster method by rounding up remainders for a state's quota, q , at the geometric mean, G , rather than at the arithmetic mean.
The geometric mean is found by multiplying two successive numbers together, then taking the square root of their product; here, the successive numbers represent a state's q rounded down to the nearest whole number its "lower" quota and a state's q rounded up to the nearest whole number its "upper" quota. Each state receives its "lower" quota of seats and then may receive an additional seat if its quota, q , is greater than or equal to its geometric mean, G.
Huntington-Hill Method—Sample Apportionment. Step 1: Find lower quota round down any q remainder and upper quota round up any q remainder. The initial calculation for a state's quota, q , under the method of equal proportions, is made by using the "ideal" district size, d , as the divisor. Table A-4 provides a sample apportionment in which the sum of the rounded geometric means happens to result in the desired House size, H , of 20 seats, but, in practice, this often does not occur.
If the sum of the rounded geometric means for each state does not result in the desired number of House seats, there is an additional step: seats can be apportioned using a priority list , which essentially ranks each state's claim to the "next" House seat apportioned i. To generate a priority list, each state's apportionment population is multiplied by a series of multiplier values. Other states use commissions to create redistricting plans. In some states, failure by the legislature to act can send responsibility for redistricting to a commission.
Although laws and court decisions govern redistricting decisions, redistricting is a political process. It is particularly painful to congressional incumbents in states that have lost seats. Unless one or more incumbents retire, two incumbents are likely to face each other in a primary if they are of the same party, or in a general election if they are of opposing parties. Even in states that gain seats, redistricting can be a problem for incumbents.
Where a party controls both houses of the legislature and the governorship, it often uses this power to increase the likelihood of winning additional districts, both existing, albeit revised, and new.
In states with commission redistricting, there can be a sense of unpredictability and lack of influence by politicians over the outcome. And, the addition of districts due to reapportionment offers additional opportunities for drafting district lines to favor a party, a racial or ethnic group, a socioeconomic group, or another set of voters.
In , Jeffersonian Republicans forced through the Massachusetts legislature a bill rearranging district lines to assure them an advantage in the upcoming senatorial elections.
Congress has the ability to increase that number, but has not done so on a permanent basis since To avoid increasing the number of representatives in the U. As a result, the boundaries of the districts in each state must change every 10 years to accommodate the new population count from the most recent census. To learn how the representatives are apportioned divided to all of the states fairly, click here.
This maps show the different districts in Florida. Note the odd shapes of the districts, especially in the Northeast corner.
Wisconsin District Map. Compared to some states this one is pretty ordinary. As stated in the text, the districts for the state of Texas have not yet been drawn for because the U. Supreme Court has not yet ruled. Note the odd shapes of the districts as they have been up until now. Gerrymandering also means redrawing district boundaries, but it includes a lot of politics in the process.
Most state legislatures have primary control over both the state and Congressional redistricting process of their states. Some states engage an independent commission to redraw district boundaries. Some states forbid state officials from participating in the redrawing while other states allow it. Even when politicians do not participate directly in the redrawing of district boundaries, they do have the ability to vote against proposals they object to.
As a result, the majority party, or political party in power, usually has a lot of control over where the new district boundary lines are drawn. I am including photos of maps from a few states showing district boundaries so that you can see how convoluted some districts are drawn in order to make them advantages to the politicians in that district.
The reason district lines are often drawn the way they are is to favor the political party in power. This is not an exercise in finger pointing because both major Parties in the U. If it did not matter where the district boundaries are drawn, a state would simply leave it to a staff member to draw lines as evenly divided throughout the state as possible according to population not area. If it did not matter where the district boundaries are drawn, there would be no such thing as gerrymandering.
By its definition, gerrymandering is manipulating district boundaries for political gain of one political party or another. It does matter where the boundaries of districts within each state are drawn.
It matters to the politicians in each state, and it is extremely important to the voters and citizens of each state — though most citizens are generally uninformed of this fact. Where the boundaries of a district are drawn plays a big part in determining which political party is likely to prevail in every election , especially statewide and nationwide elections.
When a particular political party is in power or in the majority, that party naturally wants to give its candidates every advantage so that the party can remain in power. People who favor term limits should take this to heart. Once a party is in power, especially if they are in power right after a new census has been completed, that party will do everything to assure that the new district boundaries in their state will favor their own reelection as well the election of other politicians of their party.
Only the majority party can succeed with this plan, and as I explained earlier, both major U. Sometimes it is possible for the minority party to block efforts on the part of the majority party to redraw district boundaries entirely to their own advantage. That happens when the majority party does not have that big of a majority.
It could be less depending on the circumstances at the time. If conditions are right, the minority party may be able to force a filibuster to prevent the majority party from getting their way, at least for the duration of the filibuster.
The filibuster has been used many times in the history of this country as well as by individual state legislatures to prevent passage of bills on all kinds of things.
In most states the legislature has the last word in where district boundaries are drawn. The majority party, or party in power, determines where those district boundaries will be, and they make every effort to guarantee their own advantage in being reelected and in electing more members of their own party.
How do they do that? They do that by making certain that the majority of voters in each district have a strong history of voting for members of their political party. We know how most states in the U. The reason a state is referred to as a red state or a blue state is because the majority of districts within that state can be depended on to vote Republican or Democrat.
By knowing that, we can often predict which states will vote for a particular presidential candidate. Even though it is not known which candidate a voter has cast his or her vote for, we still get a total of the results of which candidate s the majority of voters in a particular district voted for. If a district votes consistently for candidates of a particular party over a period of time, it is usually safe to predict they will continue to do so.
When district boundaries are redrawn, the party a particular district has consistently favored will attempt to keep that district as much in tact as possible, adding only a small percentage of new people to that district if need be, in order to keep the votes of people added to that district watered down, so to speak. The opposition party will do exactly the opposite with the district described in the paragraph above.
The opposition party will make every effort to divide that district, splitting portions of it up between other districts that have a history of consistently voting for the opposition party. By doing that it is possible to neutralize the votes against them and keep their party in power for a long time.
In addition to knowing which way most districts will vote by their voting history, there are telephone surveys taken on a regular basis around election dates, and in that case, it is possible to know how individual people will vote.
They will not ask for your name, but they already have your phone number. Telephone surveys are fairly expensive so that whoever funds them is likely to keep every piece of information gleaned from them in a file somewhere. It is not my intention to create paranoia here, but to simply point out how things really work as opposed to the way a lot of people seem to imagine they work. Most people look out for themselves first, and it is in the interest of politicians to know where their advantages lie.
The Republican and Democratic parties came to an agreement to gerrymander the boundaries. It was mutually decided that the status quo in terms of balance of power would be preserved. With this goal, districts were assigned to voters in such a way that they were dominated by one or the other party, with few districts that could be considered competitive. In only a few cases did this require extremely convoluted boundaries, but [nevertheless] resulted in preservation of existing strongholds.
Rarely does gerrymandering go the way it did in California in , but it usually does favor the majority party -- the party in power, whether that is the Republicans or the Democrats. In , the parties in power were divided almost evenly in California, including Independents. The two parties resolved their dilemma by working together to all but guarantee each of them would be reelected in several elections to come.
Who says our political parties cannot work together? The most important thing to remember about who gets the advantage in gerrymandering is that it is NEVER the voters. It is always the Democrat or the Republican Party, as well as the benefit of sitting politicians here in the U. Even then, they did not concern themselves with what was best for their constituents.
Lots of people have made suggestions about how gerrymandering could be avoided and some states are taking steps to improve the practice to benefit the voters of their states more, but for now things are as described here.
If you would like more information about how specific states do redistricting, click here. To learn more about how redistricting and gerrymandering work, watch the following short, but entertaining video.
Currently, Texas is in the midst of a redistricting war of sorts. The state of Texas is dominated by Republicans. Through gerrymandering, Republicans have attempted to water down minority votes by piecing out their neighborhoods and communities into larger Conservative stronghold districts. A process I described earlier in this document.
They do not steal the entire vehicle, but remove parts of it and sell them. So voting districts are treated the same way.
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