The Limits of Partisan Gerrymandering: Looking Ahead to the 2010 Congressional Redistricting Cycle
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Nicholas R Seabrook
This article looks ahead to the 2010 congressional redistricting cycle, and makes the case that the concern over the pernicious effects of partisan redistricting has been significantly over-exaggerated. Those attempting to use partisan control of the apparatus of state government to influence future elections operate under a number of significant constraints, from legal and political factors that inhibit the redistricting process and frequently result in compromise or litigation, to geographical and structural factors that dictate the extent to which electoral boundaries can be effectively manipulated to produce deviations from partisan symmetry. Evidence from the 1990 and 2000 redistricting cycles indicates that the benefits of partisan gerrymandering, where present, are extremely susceptible to subsequent electoral swings. This casts considerable doubt on the utility of partisan gerrymandering as a mechanism for instituting long-term electoral bias in congressional elections.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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- The British General Election of 2010
- Electoral Challenges of Moderate Factions: Main Streeters and Blue Dogs, 1994-2008
- "Still Chastened": Assessing the Scope of Constitutional Change under an "Obama Court"
- Race and 2008 Presidential Politics in Florida: A List Experiment
- Black Radical Voices and Policy Effectiveness in the U.S. Congress
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- Redistricting in the U.S.: A Review of Scholarship and Plan for Future Research
- The Limits of Partisan Gerrymandering: Looking Ahead to the 2010 Congressional Redistricting Cycle
- Review
- Review of Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin
- Review of Class War: What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality
- Review of In Time of War: Understanding Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- The British General Election of 2010
- Electoral Challenges of Moderate Factions: Main Streeters and Blue Dogs, 1994-2008
- "Still Chastened": Assessing the Scope of Constitutional Change under an "Obama Court"
- Race and 2008 Presidential Politics in Florida: A List Experiment
- Black Radical Voices and Policy Effectiveness in the U.S. Congress
- Palin as Prototype? Sarah Palin's Career in the Context of Political Women in the Frontier West
- Redistricting in the U.S.: A Review of Scholarship and Plan for Future Research
- The Limits of Partisan Gerrymandering: Looking Ahead to the 2010 Congressional Redistricting Cycle
- Review
- Review of Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin
- Review of Class War: What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality
- Review of In Time of War: Understanding Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq
