The term gerrymandering always evokes spirited partisan debate and political controversy. Yet, when we begin to scratch at the surface, we see that there is more to gerrymandering than debates about cartographical aesthetics. The issue goes directly to the heart of theories of democracy and representation and is replete with controversy, irony, and inconsistency.

My key point is that resolving the gerrymandering issue is distinct from, and therefore may not result in, improving representation. This point is due to the fact that neither jurists nor scholars have been able to set forth a clear and consistent definition of representation.

Terminology:

The term gerrymander must be distinguished from redistricting. The latter is the process by which congressional and legislative district lines are redrawn in order to balance their populations in the wake of the decennial census. The former uses redistricting for partisan ends by dividing concentrations of voters to prevent their coalescing into a majority in a district, or by concentrating so many group members into a district that their electoral strength is diluted because the extra votes could have been used to help elect a sympathetic candidate elsewhere. It is this notion—the dilution of voting power as a result of partisan cartography—that has made the term gerrymander so controversial.