By BILL FIANDER
Insight Kansas
Poor Elbridge Gerry. He wasn’t even a fan of this. Toeing his party’s line, he approved a newly drawn Boston district that was lampooned as a mythological menacing-winged dragon, or salamander.
While a salamander-shaped district helped his party hold onto the legislature, this Bill of Rights father lost his governor’s seat, and forever lent his name to unsavory contorted lines re-drawn for partisan political gain
Thus, gerry-mandered maps were born. Power, perils, and all.
Two hundred thirteen years later, partisan gerrymandering is having another moment. No less than nine Republican-led and Democrat-led states, including Kansas, are actively contemplating rare mid-census map changes to congressional districts ahead of next year’s elections; salamanders, pinwheels, Zorros, inkblots, and other odd shapes that only a Rorschach test giver could love will determine control of the U.S. House.
While partisan politics is gratuitously on display in today’s efforts, what is less apparent is what line on a map best serves a representative democracy.
Creation of districts for the House of Representatives was fueled by a fear of tyranny under the constitution; a compromise in our federalist framework that ensured local voices could check the power of a new centralized federal government and president.
But it wasn’t just about the fear of a king’s tyranny or an elite few. Just as important was to prevent a tyranny of the majority. Minority rights in religion, political parties, property, press, commerce, ancestry, etc. had to withstand a majority’s trampling if the newfound freedoms were to mean anything.
To that end, lines on House maps reflected non-partisan coherent geographies of common interest that could elevate the influence of minority groups politically. They represented fisherman, farmers, coalminers, mountain regions, religions, racial/ethnic neighborhoods, and any sub-set of population geography brought together.
Natural boundaries – city/county limits, rivers, major roads, rail, mountains, public universities, etc. – bonded those interests instead of political party. Within those geographies of common interests, political parties vied to become the voice of those interests through ideologies and lawmaking.
But we don’t live in that world anymore, do we?
Unless states say otherwise, splitting geographies of common interest for pure partisan gain is legal after Rucho v. Common Cause (2019). Most states, including Kansas, do not prohibit the practice.
AI mapmaking algorithms can spit out thousands of district options in the blink of an eye. Flipping 10%-20% (25% in Kansas) of a state’s congressional seats at the touch of a button is an intoxicating power unlike any other tool available that stacks the partisan deck.
In this world, parties have become the common interest; not people, natural resources, schools, local economies, drinking water, or air sheds. The political tail wagging the proverbial geographic dog. A shape that ironically comes to mind when looking at the gerrymandered Kansas congressional district 1 barking from Lawrence to Colorado.
Where does this end?
Left to current devices, it doesn’t. Johnson County beware. In Kansas, state voters are not in charge. Legislators are. Courts to a degree. Even the last protected domain under the Voting Rights Act – racial gerrymandering – has a target on its back (Louisiana v. Callais).
What do we really want out of re-districting? Competitive races? Partisan fairness? Respect for common geographies? All three? Technology can map whatever weighted parameters “we” want.
But until voters in Kansas and other states send a message, “we” are all racing to the bottom lampooning the very foundations of a representative democracy.
Bill Fiander is a university lecturer at Washburn University, Topeka, specializing in public administration, urban planning, and state/local government.