Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

The U.S. has become more segregated. That could make gerrymandering worse.

Anti-gerrymandering rally

This round of gerrymandering could be worse due to increases in racial segregation in many metro areas, a recent study found.

Sarah L. Voisin/Getty Images

As American politics has become more divisive over the past few decades, the country has also become more racially segregated.

More than 80 percent of the large metropolitan areas in the United States were more segregated in 2019 than they were in 1990, according to a new study by the University of California at Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute. Released last week, "The Roots of Structural Racism: Twenty-First Century Racial Residential Segregation in the United States" found that this increased segregation has contributed to poorer life outcomes, especially for people of color.

Areas with more racial segregation also had higher levels of political polarization, the study found. These divisions could play a huge role in how severe this round of gerrymandering is as states will soon redraw election maps for the new decade.


The Othering & Belonging Institute's study refutes the prevailing perception that the United States has become more integrated since the civil rights era. While metropolitan areas overall have become more diverse over the years, the neighborhoods within them are now highly segregated.

This racial residential segregation, the study found, will likely make it easier for politicians to use gerrymandering techniques like "packing" and "cracking" to draw election districts to their party's advantage.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made it illegal for states to draw maps in ways that dilute the voting power of protected minority communities. And in 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering was an issue best litigated in state courts.

While racial gerrymandering remains unconstitutional, it can still occur when it becomes conflated with partisan gerrymandering, said Stephen Menendian, the study's lead researcher of the study and assistant director of the institute.

"Regions and states that have a lot of racial residential segregation make it much easier for state legislatures to draw boundaries in ways that are ostensibly political gerrymanders but actually racial gerrymanders," he said.

For instance, Menendian said, the state legislators in charge of mapmaking can make assumptions about which political party will draw voters from people of certain races, and then draw district lines accordingly.

Severe partisan gerrymandering leads to a disparity in political representation. One party may receive a majority of the votes in an election, but end up as the minority in the state legislature or Congress because of map manipulation. And this issue has only become more acute with modern technology.

"In 1890 you didn't have a computer that allowed you to generate literally thousands of scenarios in a minute, and then select the most fine point scenario that allowed you to maximize your political advantage," Menendian said. "It's basically politicians selecting voters, rather than the other way around."

Gerrymandering has larger implications on policies, including those related to ballot access, that are enacted at the state and federal levels. To make the mapmaking process more fair and representative, some states have adopted independent or hybrid commissions. However, politicians still have control over a majority of the state legislative and congressional maps.

Read More

U.S. President Barack Obama speaking on the phone in the Oval Office.

U.S. President Barack Obama talks President Barack Obama talks with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan during a phone call from the Oval Office on November 2, 2009 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, The White House

‘Obama, You're 15 Years Too Late!’

The mid-decade redistricting fight continues, while the word “hypocrisy” has become increasingly common in the media.

The origin of mid-decade redistricting dates back to the early history of the United States. However, its resurgence and legal acceptance primarily stem from the Texas redistricting effort in 2003, a controversial move by the Republican Party to redraw the state's congressional districts, and the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry. This decision, which confirmed that mid-decade redistricting is not prohibited by federal law, was a significant turning point in the acceptance of this practice.

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand of a person casting a ballot at a polling station during voting.

Gerrymandering silences communities and distorts elections. Proportional representation offers a proven path to fairer maps and real democracy.

Getty Images, bizoo_n

Gerrymandering Today, Gerrymandering Tomorrow, Gerrymandering Forever

In 1963, Alabama Governor George Wallace declared, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." (Watch the video of his speech.) As a politically aware high school senior, I was shocked by the venom and anger in his voice—the open, defiant embrace of systematic disenfranchisement, so different from the quieter racism I knew growing up outside Boston.

Today, watching politicians openly rig elections, I feel that same disbelief—especially seeing Republican leaders embrace that same systematic approach: gerrymandering now, gerrymandering tomorrow, gerrymandering forever.

Keep ReadingShow less
An oversized ballot box surrounded by people.

Young people worldwide form new parties to reshape politics—yet America’s two-party system blocks them.

Getty Images, J Studios

No Country for Young Politicians—and How To Fix That

In democracies around the world, young people have started new political parties whenever the establishment has sidelined their views or excluded them from policymaking. These parties have sometimes reinvigorated political competition, compelled established parties to take previously neglected issues seriously, or encouraged incumbent leaders to find better ways to include and reach out to young voters.

In Europe, a trio in their twenties started Volt in 2017 as a pan-European response to Brexit, and the party has managed to win seats in the European Parliament and in some national legislatures. In Germany, young people concerned about climate change created Klimaliste, a party committed to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as per the Paris Agreement. Although the party hasn’t won seats at the federal level, they have managed to win some municipal elections. In Chile, leaders of the 2011 student protests, who then won seats as independent candidates, created political parties like Revolución Democrática and Convergencia Social to institutionalize their movements. In 2022, one of these former student leaders, Gabriel Boric, became the president of Chile at 36 years old.

Keep ReadingShow less
How To Fix Gerrymandering: A Fair-Share Rule for Congressional Redistricting

Demonstrators gather outside of The United States Supreme Court during an oral arguments in Gill v. Whitford to call for an end to partisan gerrymandering on October 3, 2017 in Washington, DC

Getty Images, Olivier Douliery

How To Fix Gerrymandering: A Fair-Share Rule for Congressional Redistricting

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground. ~ Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Col. Edward Carrington, Paris, 27 May 1788

The Problem We Face

The U.S. House of Representatives was designed as the chamber of Congress most directly tethered to the people. Article I of the Constitution mandates that seats be apportioned among the states according to population and that members face election every two years—design features meant to keep representatives responsive to shifting public sentiment. Unlike the Senate, which prioritizes state sovereignty and representation, the House translates raw population counts into political voice: each House district is to contain roughly the same number of residents, ensuring that every citizen’s vote carries comparable weight. In principle, then, the House serves as the nation’s demographic mirror, channeling the diverse preferences of the electorate into lawmaking and acting as a safeguard against unresponsive or oligarchic governance.

Nationally, the mismatch between the overall popular vote and the partisan split in House seats is small, with less than a 1% tilt. But state-level results tell a different story. Take Connecticut: Democrats hold all five seats despite Republicans winning over 40% of the statewide vote. In Oklahoma, the inverse occurs—Republicans control every seat even though Democrats consistently earn around 40% of the vote.

Keep ReadingShow less