• UMBC Non-Discrimination Policy Statement
• USM Policy of Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity or Expression
• LGBTQ+ Resources at UMBC
• UMBC Gender Inclusive Housing Options
• UMBC Career Center Resources
• The Mosaic Center
• UMBC LGBTQ Faculty and Staff Association
• UMBC LGBTQ Student Union

• UMBC Non-Discrimination Policy Statement
• USM Policy of Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity or Expression
• LGBTQ+ Resources at UMBC
• UMBC Gender Inclusive Housing Options
• UMBC Career Center Resources
• The Mosaic Center
• UMBC LGBTQ Faculty and Staff Association
• UMBC LGBTQ Student Union

Calling all UMBC campus Veterans!  

John Rennie Short, Professor, School of Public Policy, UMBC

November’s midterm elections are some of the most eagerly awaited, closely watched and hyperpartisan for many years.

But the results for many congressional House seats are already known because the election will occur at a time of rampant gerrymandering.

For example, Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District is drawn up in a way that guarantees the 2018 election victory of Democratic incumbent John Sarbanes. Congressional districts in Texas are drawn up to favor Republicans, such as Mike Conway who is assured victory in the 11th District.

The mechanism is simple: The political party that controls state legislatures gets to redraw congressional boundaries every 10 years after the results of the most recent Census. Gerrymandering is the partisan redrawing of these boundaries. Basically, it allows politicians to select their voters rather than the voters to choose their representatives.

In 2012, Republicans won a majority of 33 seats in the House despite getting 1.4 million fewer votes than their Democratic opponents. In the past four congressional elections, Republicans have won a larger share of seats than their share of nationwide votes. These results are a sure sign that gerrymandering is involved.

The term “gerrymandering” originates with the activities of Elbridge Gerry, who in 1810 as governor of Massachusetts signed a bill that created legislative boundaries that favored his political party. A cartoonist of the day depicted the boundaries as a salamander. The system was so “gerrymandered” that the Democratic-Republicans won only 49 percent of the votes but picked up 72 percent of the seats.

Gerrymandering involves what’s called the “cracking and packing” of voters by moving the boundaries of voting districts. Cracking spreads opposition voters thinly across many districts to dilute their power. Packing concentrates opposition voters in fewer districts to reduce the number of seats they can win.

There are four main reasons why gerrymandering has gotten worse in the last 20 years.

1. It makes a difference

First, gerrymandering is effective in helping political parties hold power in the House.

Since 1995, after 40 years of uninterrupted Democratic dominance, the House has become more competitive because in large part the South turned Republican.

As the Dixie Democratic stronghold became a Republican bastion, the House came into play. Republicans took control from 1995 to 2007, Democrats won back the house in 2007 and Republicans regained control in 2011. Gerrymandering is now seen as a way to tip the scales in a more competitive climate.

One political consultant, Thomas Hofeller, described by many as a gerrymander genius, was particularly effective in designing redistricting strategies for Republicans between 1992 and 2017. He was one of the first to realize that redrawing boundaries was one way to elect as many Republicans as possible. In 1992 he worked for the Republican National Committee in drawing congressional maps in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio. He subsequently advised Republican politicians across the country on how to redraw electoral maps to their advantage.

2. More effective technology

Second, gerrymandering has become a much more effective tool in the last 20 years. With sophisticated computer programs and ever more detailed information on voters’ location and preferences, politicians can now crack and pack with surgical precision.

Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District slithers and slides across the state to pick up as many Democratic voters as possible. A Republican Texas packs Democratic voters into a few seats to ensure a Republican majority. With pinpoint accuracy afforded by these new technologies, state legislatures are able to ensure victory for their party.

3. The Supreme Court

The third reason is that the Supreme Court has effectively sanctioned gerrymandering.

In 1986, the court in Thornburg v. Gingles ruled against a Democratic legislature’s attempt to thinly spread minority voters among seven new districts in North Carolina. The case was brought by minority groups in the state who felt it impaired their ability to elect representatives of their choice in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The ruling helped create districts where minority voters were concentrated, so-called majority-minority seats, and hence encouraged the future packing of voters.

When the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania legislature proposed a partisan redistricting plan after the 2000 Census, members of the Democratic Party sued in federal court that it was unconstitutional under the one-person, one-vote principle of Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution. In Vieth v. Jubelirer in 2004, the court ruled 5-4 not to intervene. Predictably, partisan gerrymandering then increased especially after the redistricting round after the 2010 Census.

Shelby County Alabama filed a case against the constitutionality of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that protected voters’ rights in the South. In Shelby v. Holder in 2013, the court in a 5-4 ruling overturned key elements of the act. The ruling encouraged partisan gerrymandering in areas of the country previously under federal scrutiny.

In 2017, and again in 2018, the Supreme Court passed up numerous opportunities to decide upon the constitutional legality or illegality of gerrymandering. The Supreme Court’s choice not to intervene has emboldened ever more partisan gerrymandering.

4. No likely solution

A fourth reason is that it is difficult for the courts to agree on solutions. There are numerous potential solutions.
The efficiency gap for example measures the number of “wasted” votes for a party that cannot win in a district. The difference between the wasted votes for each side, divided by the total number of votes, is the efficiency gap. It was used to assess the Republican 2011 redistricting plan in Wisconsin.

But technical problems
remain in dealing with the complexity of creating fair elections under the “winner take all” system we currently have.

So, some people argue for a major overhaul of our electoral system to overcome gerrymandering. For example, under equal weighting, voters rank candidates in order of preference rather than just choosing one. Proportional representation would involve major changes to our current electoral system and is unlikely in the near future.

Polarized politics

Gerrymandering has a pernicious impact on the electoral system and on the wider democratic process. It encourages long-term incumbency and a consequent polarization of political discourses. In gerrymandered districts, politicians only need to appeal to their base rather than to a wider electorate.

Legal challenges to gerrymandering may succeed, but until then it remains an ugly fact of the U.S. electoral system that belies our claim to be a democracy. The results of the upcoming election will reflect the redistricting designs of politicians as much as the will of the people.

* * * * *

John Rennie Short, Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Header image by Joey Csunyo on Unsplash

Dana Bradley, the new dean of the Erickson School for Aging Studies, considers herself an accidental gerontologist. Many leaders in aging services are inspired to work in the field through personal experiences with family members aging, but Bradley’s interest emerged in the classroom. She began to pursue research on programs and services for older adults and their families as a graduate student through curiosity about big questions and a passion for innovation across disciplines.

“I knew I would always find an interesting job in the field of aging,” says Bradley. “I came to UMBC because the Erickson School’s focus is on leading and being on the edge through engaged scholarship with endless possibilities.”

Bradley holds a Ph.D. in applied history and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University and has served in faculty and leadership positions at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and Western Kentucky University, where she directed the Center for Gerontology. At UMBC, in addition to serving as dean of the Erickson School, she is a professor of sociology, anthropology, and health administration and policy, and serves on the advisory board The Hilltop Institute, which focuses on healthcare policy.

Addressing the process of aging

Throughout her career, Bradley’s goal has been to help people understand the process of aging. “We are all aging,” she explains. “The better we understand how people manage life as they age the better products, services, and living environments we can create, with a lasting impact for our families and communities.”

This spirit of empowerment about how we think of aging led Bradley to become a founding member of the Global Aging Research Network and leader in the Age-Friendly Cities movement. In recognition of her decades of contributions to the field, she was elected a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education.

Bradley is energized by the breadth of expertise in the Erickson School, and the opportunities available through UMBC ’s entrepreneurial and collaborative culture, and close proximity to Washington D.C. “The Erickson School covers a lot of policy issues and issues that are not related to long-term care,” she shares. “We are developing programs and research collaborations looking at how we support and maintain people as they age in the workforce, whether that may be out of choice or because they may not be able to afford retirement. We want to innovate solutions for a workforce that is engaged much longer than ever before.”

Calling all innovators

Innovation, engaged research, and collaboration all have one thing in common, Bradley points out — questions. “The questions are mind-boggling,” she says. It isn’t just how to serve an aging workforce that keeps her busy but looking beyond. Bradley believes, “This is a world where engineers, designers, coders, visual artists, musicians, writers, mathematicians, economists—you name it—they are all needed to design living, working, and transportation spaces that are responsive to how humans age. This is a collective question that needs answers from all fields.”

For the year ahead, Bradley is particularly excited about the Erickson School’s annual summit for leading researchers in memory care at Disney World. Even in the “Happiest Place on Earth,” Dr. Bradley is applying research to help create inclusive experiences. “This year we are focusing on creating environments which are supportive for people with dementia,” she says. “We are spending some time behind the scenes at Disney World, understanding how they as a company think about that issue with their guests.”

Whether it’s in the classroom, at an academic conference, or working with a company or a community, Bradley explains, “Our work is always about supporting engaged conversations to discuss aging given the resources and tools to plan and act accordingly, to be responsible and ethical citizens, to be engaged with people of many different ages in their lifetime.”

Banner image: Dean Bradley outside of the Performing Arts and Humanities Building. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.