Introduction -- Congressional Districts -- Political question -- One person, one vote -- State Legislative Districts -- Gerrymandering -- Manageable standard for resolving gerrymandering -- Conclusion.

The explosive account of how Republican legislators and political operatives fundamentally rigged our American democracy through redistricting. With Barack Obama’s historic election in 2008, pundits proclaimed the Republicans as dead as the Whigs of yesteryear. Yet even as Democrats swooned, a small cadre of Republican operatives, including Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie, and Chris Jankowski began plotting their comeback with a simple yet ingenious plan. These men had devised a way to take a tradition of dirty tricks—known to political insiders as “ratf**king”—to a whole new, unprecedented level. Flooding state races with a gold rush of dark money made possible by Citizens United, the Republicans reshaped state legislatures, where the power to redistrict is held. Reconstructing this never- told-before story, David Daley examines the far-reaching effects of this so-called REDMAP program, which has radically altered America’s electoral map and created a firewall in the House, insulating the party and its wealthy donors from popular democracy. Ratf**ked pulls back the curtain on one of the greatest heists in American political history.

Recent U.S. elections have defied nationwide majority preference at the White House, Senate, and House levels. This work of interdisciplinary scholarship explains how “winner-take-all” and single-member district elections make this happen, and what can be done to repair the system. Proposed reforms include the National Popular Vote interstate compact (presidential elections); eliminating the Senate filibuster; and proportional representation using Ranked Choice Voting for House, state, and local elections.

For years Mark Monmonier, "a prose stylist of no mean ability or charm" according to the Washington Post, has delighted readers with his insightful understanding of cartography as an art and technology that is both deceptive and revealing. Now he turns his focus to the story of political cartography and the redrawing of congressional districts. His title Bushmanders and Bullwinkles combines gerrymander with the surname of the president who actively tolerated racial gerrymandering and draws attention to the ridiculously shaped congressional districts that evoke the antlers of the moose who shared the cartoon spotlight with Rocky the Flying Squirrel. Written from the perspective of a cartographer rather than a political scientist, Bushmanders and Bullwinkles examines the political tales maps tell when votes and power are at stake. Monmonier shows how redistricting committees carve out favorable election districts for themselves and their allies; how disgruntled politicians use shape to challenge alleged racial gerrymanders; and how geographic information systems can make reapportionment a controversial process with outrageous products. He also explores controversies over the proper roles of natural boundaries, media maps, census enumeration, and ethnic identity. Raising important questions about Supreme Court decisions in regulating redistricting, Monmonier asks if the focus on form rather than function may be little more than a distraction from larger issues like election reform. Characterized by the same wit and clarity as Monmonier's previous books, Bushmanders and Bullwinkles is essential background for understanding what might prove the most contentious political debate of the new decade.

Publisher Description.

This volume is motivated by three concerns. First is the belief that the issue of political gerrymander will play a significant (although far from dominant) role in redistricting litigation in the 1990s and thereafter. In the 1980s, the legislative and/or congressional redistricting plans of all but a handful of states were subject to lawsuits (Grofman, 1985a). Many of these lawsuits involved the issue of racial vote dilution (Grofman, Migalski, and Noviello, 1985). In the 1980s hundreds of local jurisdictions that used at-large or multimember district elections had their electoral system challenged OCo and most of the jurisdictions under challenge were forced to change their system to a single-member district plan that was not dilutive of minority voting strength (see, e.g., Brischetto and Grofman, 1988). Although partisan gerrymandering is less prevalent than racial vote dilution, in the 1990s we can expect to see challenges to partisan gerrymandering like those in the 1980s to racial vote dilution. In particular, numerous local jurisdictions that use partisan multimember district or at-large elections may be subject to challenge. Second, in commissioning essays I sought to involve a number of the leading scholars in the field so as to put together a largely selfcontained compendium of the major points of view on how issues of partisan gerrymandering are to be litigated. While the ultimate issues in constitutional interpretation are ones that the Supreme Court must resolve, and these will be resolved only after an extensive series of case-by-case adjudications-just as the actual numerical features of the one person, one vote standard evolved only in the decade of litigation after Baker v. Carr (Grofman, 1989a) OCo there is an important role for social scientists to play. Social science testimony proved important in the area of racial vote dilution by aiding courts to interpret the provisions of the Voting Rights Acts (e.g., in defining the operational meaning of terms like racially polarized voting; Grofman, Migalski, and Noviello, 1985; Grofman, 1989b). In like manner, I believe that research by social scientists will aid attorneys and the federal courts in specifying manageable standards to define and measure the effects of partisan gerrymandering. I hope this volume will prove instrumental as the beginning of such a dialogue. The third concern that motivated this volume is my view that egregious partisan gerrymandering is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment rights of political groups, and that it is both appropriate and necessary for courts to intervene when such rights are significantly impaired. However, I recognize that the courts must steer a careful line so as to avoid encouraging frivolous lawsuits, while at the same time sending a clear message to potential gerrymanders that intentional egregious political gerrymanders, which eliminate competition and are built to be resistant to electoral tides, will be struck down. Court intervention to end egregious partisan gerrymandering is necessary for a number of reasons."

In 1812 the Jeffersonian-dominated Massachusetts legislature, with the approval of Governor Elbridge Gerry, split Essex County in an effort to dilute the strength of the Federalists. Noting the resemblance of the new, oddly shaped district to a well-known amphibian, a local newspaper dubbed the creation a "gerrymander." Less well known about this oft-recounted episode of American history, writes political scientist Mark Rush, is its outcome: in the ensuing election, the Federalists won the district anyway. Today, politically divisive redistricting--gerrymandering to some--still causes bitter reapportionment disputes, renewed threats of class action lawsuits, and legislative wrangling. In Does Redistricting Make a Difference? Rush offers a skeptical inquiry into this controversy and a critical assessment of the assumptions underlying current analyses of the redistricting process. He focuses on long-term voting results in redrawn districts and concludes that redistricting--at least given present criteria and guidelines--has little impact. By showing how difficult it is to perpetrate a successful partisan gerrymander, Rush challenges the notion that an electorate can be organized into Democratic and Republican "groups." He further questions the validity of current political research--and highly paid political consulting--undertaken on the assumption that such organization is feasible. Certain to provoke discussion and debate, Does Redistricting make a Difference? is a timely look at a topic as controversial today as it was in the days of Elbridge Gerry.