The Legislative Branch and Public Policy · Weeks 10-18

Representation and Districting

Exploring how congressional districts are drawn and the impact on political voice.

About This Topic

Congressional districts determine which communities are represented together in the House of Representatives and in state legislatures. The process of drawing these boundaries, redistricting, occurs every ten years following the census and is controlled in most states by the state legislature, creating structural incentives for partisan manipulation. Gerrymandering, the practice of drawing districts to advantage one party or dilute the voting power of a particular group, is one of the oldest and most persistent problems in American democracy.

There are two main types of gerrymandering: partisan gerrymandering, which draws districts to maximize seats for the party in power, and racial gerrymandering, which dilutes or packs minority communities to weaken their electoral influence. The Supreme Court has held that racial gerrymandering is subject to strict scrutiny under the Voting Rights Act, but in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) ruled that federal courts cannot adjudicate partisan gerrymandering claims, leaving those challenges to state courts and legislatures.

Active learning helps students move beyond abstract fairness claims to engage with the real geographic and political constraints involved in drawing fair maps. Hands-on mapping activities reveal how difficult it is to simultaneously satisfy compactness, community integrity, and proportional representation.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze how the criteria for drawing congressional districts (e.g., compactness, contiguity, population equality) can conflict with each other.
• Evaluate the impact of partisan and racial gerrymandering on the representation of diverse communities in the US House of Representatives.
• Design a hypothetical congressional district map for a given state, justifying the districting choices based on specific criteria and potential consequences.
• Compare and contrast different methods of independent redistricting commissions versus state legislature control over district drawing.

Before You Start

The US Census and Apportionment

Why: Students need to understand how the census determines the number of representatives each state receives before they can analyze how districts are drawn within those states.

Principles of Representative Democracy

Why: A foundational understanding of how elected officials represent constituents is necessary to evaluate the fairness and effectiveness of districting practices.

Key Vocabulary

Redistricting	The process of redrawing electoral district boundaries, typically every 10 years after the census, to ensure districts have roughly equal populations.
Gerrymandering	The practice of drawing electoral district boundaries to favor one political party, incumbent, or group, often resulting in oddly shaped districts.
Partisan Gerrymandering	Drawing district lines to give one political party an unfair advantage in elections, maximizing seats for the party in power.
Racial Gerrymandering	Drawing district lines to dilute or concentrate the voting power of racial or ethnic minority groups, potentially diminishing their electoral influence.
Compactness	A principle of districting that suggests districts should be as close to a square or circle as possible, minimizing irregular shapes.

Active Learning Ideas

Mapping Activity: Draw Your Own District

Using a simplified map with population data and party registration by neighborhood, students draw a set of congressional districts and explain their choices. What criteria did they prioritize? How do their districts compare to those drawn by a peer who prioritized different values? Class comparison reveals how neutral criteria still involve value trade-offs.

⏱ 55 min·Pairs

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Case Study Analysis: Before and After Redistricting

Students examine two maps of the same state, one before and one after a contested redistricting, and analyze how the changes affected election outcomes and racial or partisan representation. Students use election data to quantify the impact and compare results to what proportional outcomes would look like.

⏱ 50 min·Small Groups

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Formal Debate: Who Should Draw the Maps?

Students evaluate three approaches to redistricting: legislative control, independent commissions, and algorithmic maps. Each group defends one approach and critiques the others based on criteria the class establishes together, such as fairness, accountability, transparency, and practicality.

⏱ 50 min·Small Groups

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Real-World Connections

Political scientists and advocacy groups like the Brennan Center for Justice analyze proposed district maps for states like North Carolina and Texas, publishing reports on potential gerrymandering and its impact on voter representation.

State legislatures, such as those in Pennsylvania or Ohio, are often the primary bodies responsible for drawing congressional maps, leading to intense political debate and legal challenges over fairness and representation.

Citizens in communities like Los Angeles or Chicago may organize to advocate for fair districting, participating in public hearings or supporting ballot initiatives aimed at creating independent redistricting commissions.

Watch Out for These Misconceptions

Common Misconception

Gerrymandering is always done by one party against the other.

What to Teach Instead

Gerrymandering can be partisan or bipartisan. In some states, parties collude to draw incumbent-protection maps that protect both sides' safe seats rather than creating competitive districts. Students examining actual maps find examples of both patterns.

Common Misconception

Computer algorithms can draw perfectly neutral maps.

What to Teach Instead

Algorithmic redistricting still requires humans to define the optimization criteria, such as compactness, community integrity, or partisan fairness, and different criteria produce different maps. There is no mathematically neutral solution, only different value trade-offs. Mapping activities that use the same data but different criteria illustrate this directly.

Assessment Ideas

Quick Check

Present students with two hypothetical congressional district maps for the same state. Ask them to identify which map appears to be gerrymandered and explain one visual clue (e.g., unusual shape, split communities) that supports their conclusion.

Discussion Prompt

Facilitate a class debate using the prompt: 'Should the drawing of congressional districts be controlled by state legislatures or by independent, non-partisan commissions? Why?' Encourage students to cite specific examples of gerrymandering and its effects on voter voice.

Exit Ticket

Ask students to write one sentence defining gerrymandering and one sentence explaining why the Supreme Court's ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause is significant for challenges to partisan districting.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is gerrymandering and why does it matter?

Gerrymandering is the manipulation of electoral district boundaries to favor a particular party or group. It matters because non-competitive districts reduce voter choice, can dilute minority voting power, and contribute to polarization by allowing candidates to win primaries without appealing to a broad electorate.

What did the Supreme Court rule about gerrymandering in Rucho v. Common Cause?

The Court ruled in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions that federal courts cannot resolve. This left federal remedies unavailable, pushing challenges to state courts and legislatures. Several states have since passed independent redistricting commission laws in response to the decision.

What is a majority-minority district?

A majority-minority district is one where a racial or ethnic minority group makes up a majority of the voting-age population, designed to provide that community with a fair opportunity to elect a representative of their choice. The Voting Rights Act requires states to create such districts under certain conditions, but courts have also struck some down as unconstitutional racial sorting.

How does active learning help students understand redistricting?

Drawing districts yourself makes the trade-offs real in a way that descriptions cannot. When students try to draw a compact, community-respecting, proportionally fair map and find that these goals conflict, they gain a concrete understanding of why redistricting is contested, not because politicians are uniquely corrupt, but because the problem involves genuine value conflicts.