COM 0042.000 2010-2012 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to acquaint you with the major federal cases that will govern the way you draw your legislative and congressional redistricting plans following the 2000 census so that you may learn how to draw redistricting plans that will stand up in court. But, before I get into the cases, I think it is important to clarify some terms I will be using and to explain how the redistricting process works. A. Reapportionment and Redistricting "Reapportionment" is the process of reassigning a given number of seats in a legislative body to established districts, usually in accordance with an established plan or formula. The number and boundaries of the districts do not change, but the number of members per district does. "Redistricting" is the process of changing the district boundaries. The number of members per district does not change, but the districts' boundaries do. The relationship between reapportionment and redistricting can most easily be seen by examining the U.S. House of Representatives. Every ten years the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are reapportioned among the 50 states in accordance with the latest federal census. As the population of some states grows faster than that of others, congressional seats move from the slow - growing states to the fast - growing ones. Then, within each of the states that is entitled to more than one representative, the boundaries of the congressional districts are redrawn to make their populations equal. The state is redistricted to accommodate its reapportionment of congressmen. Reapportionment, in the narrow sense in which I will be using it here, is not a partisan political process. It is a mathematical one. The decennial reapportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives is carried out in accordance with a statutory formula, called the "method of equal proportions," established in 1941. 2 U.S.C. Sections 2a and 2b. It is not subject to partisan manipulation, except in determining who gets counted in the census. The decision of Congress to use this particular formula, rather than another, has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Dept. of Commerce v. Montana, 503 U.S. 442 (1992). Redistricting, on the other hand, is highly partisan. This is because, in redrawing district boundaries, the drafter has such wide discretion in deciding where the boundaries will run. Creative drafting can give one party a significant advantage in elections, as I shall explain in a moment. B. Gerrymandering The process of drawing districts with odd shapes to create an unfair advantage is called "gerrymandering." Like "reapportionment," the term "gerrymandering" has become so popular that it has lost its original precision and is often used to describe any technique by which a political party attempts to give itself an unfair advantage. Used in its narrow sense, to refer only to the practice of creating districts that look like monsters, there are basically just two techniques — packing and fracturing. How do they work?