How does redistricting affect malapportionment

Congressional Districts - Exactly Equal. State Legislative Districts - Up to a ten percentage point deviation, under certain circumstances. Home Try it live! Blue shaded districts are under the ideal population; gold shaded districts are above.

In the s the U. Supreme Court ruled in a series of cases that congressional and state legislative districts must be of equal population. The watershed case was Baker v Carr , where the Supreme Court ruled that redistricting was justicable, meaning that they could apply impose constitutional and statutory requirements upon redistricting. Prior to this ruling, the Supreme Court was reluctant to become involved in what they considered to be a political question best resolved by the political process, not the courts.

At stake was equal representation based on population. Some states had not redistricted in several decades, which created an population imbalance between districts located in fast growing urban areas and slow growing rural areas.

This imbalance is called malapportionment, and led to unequal representation, with persons living in rural areas effectively having more representation in Congress and their state legislatures than those living in urban areas. With rural interests dominating state legislatures, the Supreme Court realized that the political process could not fix itself, and therefore ordered that districts must be of equal population.

Many states read the writing on the wall and fixed their districts, and in some cases fixed their state constitutions to ensure redistricting would happen in a timely manner. Some did not, and the courts were forced to act. Among the most important of these cases are Wesberry v Sanders , which required congressional districts to be of equal population, and Reynolds v Sims , which required the same for state legislative districts.

Until now, redistricting has not been one of them. When the lines were ultimately drawn, they moved about , Latino voters out of one district in order to protect an incumbent who was beginning to lose the support of the Latino population. Latinos had recently become the majority of the eligible population in the district, when they were replaced by voters more likely to support the incumbent.

In , Texas had another opportunity to redraw district lines. The legislature effectively did the same thing, in the same place, to the same Latino voters. In , race riots in Los Angeles took a heavy financial toll on businesses in many neighborhoods, including the area known as Koreatown. The redistricting map, it appeared, had fractured Koreatown — an area barely over one square mile — into four City Council districts and five state Assembly districts. As a result, no legislator felt responsible to the Asian-American community.

Goodwill poisoned by the redistricting process can spill over into the entire rest of the legislative term. Indeed, in Illinois, this sort of behavior seems well within the norm. In , in a dispute over the handling of a redistricting plan, a legislator on the floor of the Statehouse charged the Senate President — whereupon a legislative colleague and former Golden Gloves boxer punched him in the face. New Feature! To download maps for offline use and create comparisons in other applications, visit the section Maps For Download.

Find a State. Process National Overview Redistricting - What is redistricting? Home Process Redistricting Why should we care? For a district to be contiguous, it generally must be possible to travel from any point in the district to any other place in the district without crossing into a different district. Most states require that redistricting practitioners take into account existing political boundaries, such as towns, cities, or counties.

In many instances, districts may not be able to be drawn in ways that encompass entire political subdivisions, given other districting standards, like population equality, that could take precedence. Maintaining political subdivisions can also help simplify election administration by ensuring that a local election jurisdiction is not split among multiple congressional districts.

Some state laws direct redistricting authorities to preserve the "core" of existing congressional districts; other states prohibit drawing district boundaries that would create electoral contests between incumbent House Members. Some states include the preservation of communities of interest as a criterion in their redistricting laws.

People within a community of interest generally have a shared background or common interests that may be relevant to their legislative representation.

These recognized similarities may be due to shared social, cultural, historical, racial, ethnic, partisan, or economic factors. In some instances, communities of interest may naturally be preserved by following other redistricting criteria, such as compactness or preserving political subdivisions.

Some states include measures providing that districts cannot be drawn to unduly favor a particular candidate or political party. The term gerrymander originated to describe districts drawn to favor a particular political party, 53 and it is often used in this context today. Redistricting has traditionally been viewed as an inherently political process, where authorities have used partisan considerations in drawing district boundaries.

Districts generally may be drawn in a way that is politically advantageous to certain candidates or political parties, unless prohibited by state law. Redistricting processes are fundamentally the responsibility of state governments under current law and practice. Among the 43 states with multiple House districts, a variety of approaches are taken, but generally, states either allow their state legislatures or a separate redistricting commission to determine congressional district boundaries.

The map in Figure 3 displays the redistricting methods currently used across states. Figure 3. State Redistricting Methods. Notes: Iowa has nonpartisan legislative staff create its redistricting maps but requires legislative approval to enact them.

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. The multiplier values are created using the reciprocal of the geometric mean associated with each potential successive seat number for the state above its constitutionally mandated first seat. Priority Values a. Corresponding Priority List Ranking b. Each priority value is calculated by multiplying the state's apportionment population by a multiplier, representing the reciprocal geometric mean of the last seat apportioned and the next seat to be apportioned.

For a list of multipliers, see U. In this table, priority values are rounded to the nearest whole number. Values italicized and in bold represent the 16 remaining seats to be apportioned, after each state receives one seat as constitutionally required and assuming a House size of Larger values in this table are not consecutive because this table only includes rankings associated with the first nine additional seats to be apportioned.

Larger states could be ranked higher and entitled to additional seats above nine before smaller states receive any additional seats. In this example, if the priority list table continued to display values for additional seats, State D would be ranked 19 th and would receive its 10 th seat before State B receives its 7 th seat ranked 20 th ; State D is also ranked 21 st and would receive its 11 th seat before State A receives its 6 th seat ranked 22 nd.