Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering manipulates district boundaries using two main techniques: “packing” opposing voters into a small number of districts to waste their votes with lopsided margins, and “cracking” them across many districts to dilute their influence everywhere. The term dates to 1812, when a Massachusetts district drawn under Governor Elbridge Gerry was said to resemble a salamander, and cartoonists coined “Gerry-mander” to mock the shape — the name stuck even though Gerry himself reportedly disliked the map.

Racial gerrymandering remains subject to real federal court oversight under the Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause, but partisan gerrymandering — drawing districts to favor one political party over another — was placed almost entirely outside federal courts’ reach in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), when the Supreme Court held 5–4 that partisan gerrymandering claims present a “political question” federal courts have no manageable legal standard to resolve, leaving the issue to state courts, state constitutions, and state-level reforms like independent redistricting commissions instead.

Common misconception: people often assume gerrymandering of any kind is illegal or at least subject to federal court review if challenged. After Rucho, purely partisan gerrymandering claims have no federal constitutional remedy at all — federal courts will still hear racial gerrymandering claims, but a map drawn explicitly and admittedly to maximize one party’s seats, with no racial element, currently has no path to a federal court ruling striking it down.