Gerrymandering and Congressional Districting

Etymology of the Term: The word "gerrymandering" is a portmanteau derived from the name of a political figure and the word "salamander."
The Original Example: The term originated in Massachusetts in the year $1812$ .
Visual Description: A congressional district was drawn in such a specific and convoluted way that it resembled a "salamander dragon creature."
Modern Definition: Gerrymandering is defined as the manipulation of congressional districts to benefit a particular political party, primarily regarding the Democrats and the Republicans.
Current Practice: Whichever political party is in charge of a specific state legislature is responsible for drawing districts that provide a strategic advantage to their party.

The Role of the Census: The United States Constitution mandates that a census must be conducted every $10$ years.
Purpose of the Census: The census is the official process of determining who lives where and calculating how many people live in specific areas.
Balance of Power: The data gathered from the census is used to determine the balance of power within the United States House of Representatives.
Legislative Background: This system is rooted in the "Great Compromise," which created a bicameral legislature:
- The Senate: Each state receives exactly $2$ senators, regardless of the state's geographic or population size.
- The House of Representatives: Seats are assigned based on the population of the state.

Membership Count: There are currently $435$ members in the United States House of Representatives.
Term Length: House members serve $2$ -year terms, meaning all members are up for reelection every $2$ years.
Apportionment and the "Equality Gap":
- Each House member represents approximately $750,000$ people.
- Per the Constitution, every state is guaranteed a minimum of $1$ House member.
- Inconsistency occurs because the math is not perfect. For example, if a state has fewer than $750,000$ people, they still get one representative. However, a state with $1,200,000$ people might still only have one representative, leading to a representation gap.
Static Membership: While representatives have been added in the past as new states joined the union, the number has held steady at $435$ for a long time and is unlikely to change in the near future.
State Control: The Constitution stipulates that states determine the manner in which elections are held. Consequently, state legislatures decide how to divide their allocated House seats into specific districts.

Democratic Voter Hotspots: Voters who typically support the Democratic party are primarily found in larger cities and densely populated urban areas.
Republican Voter Hotspots: Voters who typically support the Republican party are primarily located in rural and more spread-out geographic areas.
Visual Representation (The Dot Map):
- Blue dots (Democrats) appear very close together in clusters.
- Red dots (Republicans) are more widely dispersed across the map.
Single-Member States: States like North Dakota and South Dakota have only one House member due to their lower population counts.

Landscape: Texas is characterized as a large, very diverse state with specific high-population centers including El Paso, the DFW Metroplex (Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Grapevine), San Antonio, Austin, and Houston.
Strategic Districting Examples:
- District 13: Drawn to get close to the Dallas-Fort Worth area before taking a sharp turn and circling back.
- District 23: This district is geographically massive, described as being larger than some European countries. It stretches from near El Paso all the way down to near San Antonio.
- District 15: Noted for its unique shape, which some observers compare to the character "The Grinch."
- District 25: Stretches from near Abilene and loops around to get extremely close to the DFW area without actually touching the core urban center.
Walling Off Voters: In Texas, the Republican-led legislature draws lines to "wall off" Democratic-leaning urban counties like Bexar County (San Antonio) to prevent Democratic votes from "infecting" or flipping surrounding districts from red to blue.
Candidate Example: The congressman for the specific district mentioned in the lecture is August Pflueger.
Philosophy of Selection: Instead of voters picking their representative, gerrymandering allows representatives to essentially "pick" their voters because they have access to data on how residents vote.

Georgia (Republican-led):
- Focuses on the population center of Fulton County (Atlanta).
- Surrounding counties include Cobb County, Gwinnett County, and DeKalb County.
- The legislature draws large swaths of rural areas and walls off the urban voters to ensure legislative control.
Illinois (Democrat-led):
- As a "blue state," the goal is to protect Democratic strongholds.
- Districts are drawn as long slivers across the state to capture specific groups of voters while excluding rural areas that might shift the political balance.
- Rather than creating geographically compact boxes, they create extended shapes to ensure the area stays blue.
California (Democrat-led):
- The eastern part of California is more conservative and rural.
- The state legislature draws large districts in the east to contain rural voters and prevent them from impacting the more liberal districts.
- Specific attention is paid to areas like Los Angeles, Hollywood, and Riverside (including the Moreno Valley area along the $215$ ).

The Ease of Gerrymandering: It is generally considered easier for Republicans to gerrymander than for Democrats.
Reasoning: Democratic voters are highly concentrated in cities, making it easy to draw a single line around a big city. Republican voters are highly dispersed across rural areas, making it harder to capture or isolate them without drawing extremely complex lines.
Persistence: This practice is considered normal and legal under current standards and has been occurring for hundreds of years.
Outcome: The effects of gerrymandering are most apparent in the results of the United States House of Representatives races and state house elections nationwide.