Primer: Counter-gerrymandering
The issue of gerrymandering has risen to national prominence following recent attempts by Democrats and Republicans to redraw their states’ congressional districts. Following the 2024 federal elections, when the Republican Party possessed a slim majority in the House, President Donald Trump urged Republican officials in Texas to build on this advantage and redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. In response, California Democrats gerrymandered their state’s map to win more blue seats. These acts in the nation’s two most populous states have sparked a national arms race of partisan gerrymandering.
Most recently, Virginians voted last week to allow Democrats to change the state’s congressional map in favor of their party; after the vote, the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics predicted that the redrawn map would grant Democrats a slim majority in the House. This week, Florida Republicans are meeting in a special legislative session to gerrymander their state’s congressional map and squeeze additional seats for the GOP. Such attempts by both parties to gerrymander their way to controlling the House have sparked a nationwide debate: when the opposing party gerrymanders for power, what is the best response?
The word “gerrymander” was coined in 1812 to describe the act of manipulating congressional district boundaries for the sake of political gain. Today, in most states, the state legislature draws districts, and the governor approves or vetoes the map; since the Constitution requires that districts are equal in size, states usually repeat this process after each decennial census. In certain states, however, legislators are permitted to conduct mid-decade redistricting, enhancing the gerrymandering phenomenon.
Typically, gerrymandering falls into one of three categories: racial vote dilution, where maps minimize the electoral power of voters of color; partisan gerrymandering, where maps disproportionately advantage one party over another; and racial gerrymandering, where voters are sorted into districts based on race. Although the Supreme Court found in 1993 that the latter violates the Fourteenth Amendment, justices ruled in 2019 that federal courts cannot rule on partisan gerrymandering, although state courts can do so. Public support for the practice of gerrymandering is generally weak: a Reuters/Ipsos poll from August 2025 found that 81 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of independents, and 36 percent of Republicans opposed gerrymandering.
Those in favor of counter-gerrymandering view it as a necessary evil in order to take back political power from the opposing party. Without counter-gerrymandering, proponents claim, politicians effectively enact unilateral disarmament and surrender their party’s control for the sheer sake of electoral principle. Additionally, some proponents state that the gerrymandered map is only meant to be a temporary measure to combat the opposing party, and that gerrymandering should eventually be banned altogether once their party accumulates enough power to do so.
Meanwhile, opponents describe counter-gerrymandering as a “partisan race to the bottom” that reduces electoral competition, entrenches incumbents, and reduces public trust in democracy. As an alternative, many prefer to establish independent redistricting commissions (IRCs), composed of citizens and bipartisan groups of politicians, in order to eliminate partisan bias from the redistricting process and ensure fair and competitive districts. Others look to the Freedom the Vote Act, a proposed federal bill that would ban partisan gerrymandering altogether and entrust federal courts with the ability to determine when a gerrymander violates the Voting Rights Act.
Come join our debate this Monday at 7pm in Scott Hall!
"Washington DC - Capitol Hill: United States Capitol" by Wally Gobetz is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.