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Furthermore, polarization has been occurring throughout the country, but the use of increasingly polarized district design has not. While some states have seen an increase in these practices, many states were already largely dominated by a single party (such as in the Solid South) but still elected moderate representatives. Some parts of the country have remained closely divided between the two parties, making overt attempts at gerrymandering difficult. But when coupled with the sorting phenomenon discussed above, redistricting probably is contributing to polarization, if only at the margins.
Voters in a number of states have become so worried about the problem of gerrymandering that they have tried to deny their legislatures the ability to draw district boundaries. The hope is that by taking this power away from whichever party controls the state legislature, voters can ensure more competitive districts and fairer electoral outcomes.
In 2000, voters in Arizona approved a referendum that created an independent state commission responsible for drafting legislative districts. But the Arizona legislature fought back against the creation of the commission, filing a lawsuit that claimed only the legislature had the constitutional right to draw districts. Legislators asked the courts to overturn the popular referendum and end the operation of the redistricting commission. However, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the authority of the independent commission in a 5–4 decision titled
Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (2015).
Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission , 135 S. Ct. 2652 (2015).
Currently, only five states use fully independent commissions—ones that do not include legislators or other elected officials—to draw the lines for both state legislative and congressional districts. These states are Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, and Washington. In Florida, the League of Women Voters and Common Cause challenged a new voting districts map supported by state Republicans, because they did not believe it fulfilled the requirements of amendments made to the state constitution in 2010 requiring that voting districts not favor any political party or incumbent.
“Editorial: Republicans Should Accept Redistricting Defeat and Drop Talk of Appeals,” 10 January 2016, http://www.fairdistrictsnow.org/news/661/ (March 16, 2016).
Do you think redistricting is a partisan issue? Should commissions draw districts instead of legislators? If commissions are given this task, who should serve on them?
Think you have what it takes to gerrymander a district? Play the redistricting game and see whether you can find new ways to help out old politicians.
A divided government makes it difficult for elected officials to achieve their policy goals. This problem has gotten worse as U.S. political parties have become increasingly polarized over the past several decades. They are both more likely to fight with each other and more internally divided than just a few decades ago. Some possible causes include sorting and improved gerrymandering, although neither alone offers a completely satisfactory explanation. But whatever the cause, polarization is having negative short-term consequences on American politics.
Aldrich, John. 1995. Why Parties? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Brewer, Mark D., and L. Sandy Maisel. 2013. The Parties Respond: Changes in American Parties and Campaigns , 5th ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Brunell, Thomas L. 2008. Redistricting and Representation: Why Competitive Elections are Bad for America . New York: Routledge Press.
Cox, Gary W., and Jonathan Katz. 2002. Elbridge Gerry’s Salamander: The Electoral Consequences of the Reapportionment Revolution . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Fiorina, Morris P. 2006. Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America . 2nd ed. New York: Pearson Longman.
Hershey, Marjorie Randon. 2014. Party Politics in America , 16th ed. New York: Pearson Longman.
Hibbing, John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. 1995. Congress as Public Enemy: Public Attitudes towards American Political Institutions . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Keith, Bruce E., et al. 1992. The Myth of the Independent Voter . Berkeley, CA. Berkeley University Press.
McCarthy, Nolan, Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal. 2008. Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Noel, Hans. 2014. Political Ideologies and Political Parties in America . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sinclair, Barbara. 2005. Party Wars . Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
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