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Rethinking Redistricting: How Drawing UncompetitiveDistricts Eliminates Gerrymanders, Enhances Representation, andImproves Attitudes toward Congress

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2006

Thomas L. Brunell
Thomas L. Brunell
Affiliation:
University of Texas at Dallas
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In every contested election there are inevitably winners and losers,both among the candidates and among the voters. Some candidates willtake their seats as elected officials, and others will not. Somevoters will be happy with the outcome, others will not. Here I seekto better understand the relationship between whether a voter castsa ballot for the winning candidate in U.S. House elections and thatvoter's evaluations of her representative. I build on a burgeoningliterature on the relationship between voters and their electedgovernments to derive and test a theory about this connection. Thedata will show that voters whose preferred candidate wins a seat inthe House of Representatives are systematically happier with theirrepresentative than those voters whom did not vote for the winningcandidate. While this finding is not especially groundbreaking, theimplications for the way in which we draw congressional and statelegislative district lines are quite provocative. Specifically,since district lines in the House are necessarily an artificialconstruct, I argue that map makers ought to “pack” districts with asmany like-minded partisans as possible. Trying to draw “competitivedistricts” effectively cracks ideologically congruent voters intoseparate districts, which has the effect of increasing the absolutenumber of voters who will be unhappy with the outcome anddissatisfied with their representative. I discuss the benefits offundamentally rethinking the way in which we draw congressional andstate legislative districts, as well as address likely concerns thatmight be raised about drawing districts this way.I would like to thank Jim Adams, Valerie Brunell,Bruce Cain, Geoff Evans, Bill Koetzle, Bernie Grofman, SamHirsch, Michael D. McDonald, Iain McLean, Sam Merrill, GlennPhelps, David Rueda, Alec Stone Sweet, Chris Wlezian, and thePolitics Group at Nuffield College for their comments.

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FEATURES
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PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , January 2006 , pp. 77 - 85
Copyright
© 2006 The American Political Science Association

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