We’re well over a year away from the 2020 presidential election, but candidates are already jumping into the race. Last Monday, Sen. Kamala Harris announced her campaign for president on “Good Morning America.” Three weeks prior, Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced she was forming a presidential exploratory committee. And President Donald Trump filed his 2020 re-election paperwork on the day of his first inauguration in January 2017. As these candidates get their campaigns together and form their messages, they’ll have to decide which issues will be the most important ones in 2020. I’d like to make a suggestion for an issue they should place front and center in 2020: redistricting and gerrymandering.
For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll give a brief rundown. The U.S. is divided into 435 congressional districts in the House of Representatives across the country. State legislators redraw these districts every 10 years using the results of the latest census, a process known as "redistricting". In theory, this redistricting accounts for shifts in population (such as people moving to or from a particular area), but in practice, politicians in many states use the redistricting process for political ends. This gives a politician a safe seat and it allows them to crowd out their opposition. For example, Party A and Party B may be equally distributed in a nation, but Party A can draw the districts in a way that most or all of the districts have Party A majorities, giving them a significant electoral advantage. This is known as gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering has long plagued American political life, but its harmful effect on American democracy has come into focus lately. In Pennsylvania, for example, the state electorate is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, but because of gerrymandering, the Republicans held 13 of the state’s 18 congressional districts after the 2016 election cycle. The gerrymandering got so bad that the state supreme court struck down the electoral map last year, creating a new map with more competitive districts. As of Sunday, Pennsylvania has eight Republican congressmen and nine Democratic congressmen, with one vacant seat after Republican Tom Marino’s resignation.
Pennsylvania is just the tip of the iceberg. States around the country, from sea to shining sea, have been subject to partisan gerrymandering. But now people are fighting back. In November, voters in Michigan approved an amendment to take redistricting power away from the state legislature and give it to an independent commission. Similar proposals were also passed in Colorado, Missouri and Utah. This solution isn’t perfect (even independent commissioners might have biases that cause them to favor one party over the other), but it’s far better than the current system.
While some states have taken steps away from gerrymandering, a nationwide movement is needed. As I write this, the U.S. Supreme Court has schedule to hear a case on March 26 involving gerrymandering in Maryland, with the Republican plaintiffs arguing that the map of Maryland’s 6th congressional district unfairly favors Democrats. We’ll have to wait and see what the Supreme Court says, but a ruling against gerrymandering is far from guaranteed. The highest court in the land has been hesitant and divided on gerrymandering in the past. Richard L. Hasen, a University of California, Irvine professor of law and political science, is concerned that conservative justices, like John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, will not only refuse to act against gerrymandering, but they will strike down the independent commission system of states like Michigan, significantly setting back the movement for fair districts.
With the overwhelmingly negative effects of partisan gerrymandering, and salvation from the courts uncertain, the candidates for president in 2020 should take up the cause, emphasizing electoral reform and other anti-gerrymandering measures on the campaign trail. Candidates should make it their goal to bring power back to voters instead of state legislators. But for that to happen, we need to raise our voices, too. Getting involved with anti-gerrymandering organizations like Common Cause, FairVote and the League of Women Voters would do much to advance the cause and bring it to the attention of the public, and by extension, the candidates. If we all work together, we can end partisan gerrymandering and ensure a fair democracy.
Jason Zappulla is a UF history junior. His column appears on Mondays.
