The Gerrymander: 1812 cartoon depicting a salamander-like district that was part of a redistricting plan signed into law by Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry.
Original cartoon of 'The Gerry-Mander,' as drawn by Gilbert Stuart for the Boston Centinel in 1812.
Since the foundation of the Republic, politicians have used redistricting to benefit themselves, hurt their opponents, dilute the power of minorities, and otherwise manipulate the system in ways that seem to violate the spirit of fair play in the democratic process. This gamesmanship even has a name, "Gerrymandering," after the notorious redistricting of 1812, when the Massachusetts legislature drew a series of contorted state legislative districts to benefit the party of Gov. Elbridge Gerry. The legislators drew the lines to confine the bulk of voters for the Federalist party, Gerry's rivals, to a handful of districts, leaving his faction free to take the rest of the districts. A political cartoon of the time coined the term Gerrymander as a portmanteau word based on the name of the governor and the salamander-like shape of one of these districts.
Court rulings on the topic of gerrymandering have been quite mixed, striking down apparently gerrymandered district plans in some cases while upholding them in others. While many jurisdictions have interpreted provisions of the Voting Rights Act as mandating the creation of majority minority districts in order to ensure the representation of African-Americans, Hispanic-American, and other groups in legislative bodies, in recent years courts have also struck down some such efforts to draw districts based on racial lines. By contrast, a recent U.S. Supreme Court case upheld a partisan gerrymander stemming from Pennsylvania's latest redistricting, although the ruling implied that such plans could be ruled unconstitutional in the future if a sufficient legal standard is established.
This is not to say, however, that politicians cannot still manipulate the district boundaries within the rules to damage opponents - for example, redrawing a district to ensure that a promising challenger's home is located outside the district, or slicing apart some rival's geographic power base, leaving the incumbent struggling to introduce him/herself to new voters.
Compiled by Committee of 70
Committee of Seventy + 
