Problems with Redistricting

• Malapportionment– Failure to redraw voting district lines– Combated by Warren Court in 1960s

• Baker v. Carr—”one man, one vote”• Wesberry v. Sanders

– GA’s one man, one vote case

• Gerrymandering– Practice of cracking, slicing, breaking, dividing, and

other means to dilute a certain part of the population’s voting power

– Racial, Affirmative, Partisan

Original Gerrymander

See your notes packet for details

Gomillon v. LightfootTuskegee, AL

Chicago “Earmuff”

District

Shaw v. RenoNC

Gerrymandering case

Louisiana “Z” District

•1991 GA Congressional Map

•Affirmitive Gerrymandering (good cheating)

•Tried to draw districts to get a proportionate amount of Congressional representation to the state population (33% black---try to get 3 black districts)

•Whites in District 11 sued over reverse discrimination—Miller v. Johnson

•Congressional Map drawn by the US District Court in Augusta

•Clean, compact, easy to follow divisions

•Partisan Gerrymandering

•Roy Barnes (a democrat) was Gov. of GA and Democrats controlled the state legislature, so they tried to draw districts to get more Democrats in Congress

•Notice the creative shapes of the districts

•Republicans redrew the maps mid-decade

•Precedent had been set by Texas—said states had to redraw every 10 years, but can redraw other times as well

•Republican map is cleaner and not as drastic as Roy Barnes map in 2001

•Governor’s Election 2010• Why does it matter

who you vote for?

• What is taking place this year?