What is the difference between bipartisan and partisan gerrymandering

Once a decade, every state redraws its electoral districts, determining which people will be represented by each politician. In many states, this means that politicians gather behind computer screens to figure out how they can manipulate the lines to box out their competition and maximize the power of their political party.

While an increasing number of states employ independent commissions to draw district lines, the large majority still lack safeguards to prevent partisan favoritism in the redistricting process—also known as partisan gerrymandering. It has been almost a decade since the cycle of redistricting, and the country is still reckoning with the impact. Last May, the Center for American Progress published a report that found that unfairly drawn congressional districts shifted, on average, a whopping 59 seats in the U.

House of Representatives during the , , and elections. That means that every other November, 59 politicians that would not have been elected based on statewide voter support for their party won anyway because the lines were drawn in their favor—often by their allies in the Republican or Democratic Party. To help put this number in perspective, a shift of 59 seats is slightly more than the total number of seats apportioned to the 22 smallest states by population.

Jump to navigation. This paper analyzes the optimal partisan and bipartisan gerrymandering policies in a model with electoral competitions in policy positions and transfer promises.

Also referred to as "incumbent protection," the parties cooperate to protect all existing incumbents and where possible to preserve their traditional constituencies. The techniques used for a Bipartisan Gerrymander are essentially the same as those used for a Partisan Gerrymander, cracking and packing see Messages from Mission 2. The goal of a bipartisan gerrymander is to eliminate unpredictability in potentially competitive districts.

The resulting districts all but guarantee re-election by an incumbent of each party or a representative from the incumbent's party. And Democrats face an added challenge. Because of where Democratic and Republican voters happen to live in swing states — with much of the Democratic vote packed into urban areas — it is usually easier to draw state maps that favor Republicans.

Drawing balanced or competitive maps is certainly possible, but the line-drawers often have to make a concerted effort to achieve that end, and it can often get harder to do so if they want cleanly shaped and compact districts preserving county and town boundaries. Republican legislators will be disinclined to make such an effort, and the various independent redistricting commissions may vary in how they approach this challenge.

The last round of redistricting was an utter disaster for Democrats. It happened just after the midterm election wave, which cost the party more than state legislature seats and gave the GOP total political control of most swing states. The resulting maps gave Republicans a net advantage in the House — though experts disagreed on exactly how much of one, the GOP likely gained several seats at minimum because of it. In swing-state legislatures, the situation was starker — Republicans gerrymandered and have held legislatures in states like Michigan , Wisconsin , and Pennsylvania ever since.

They launched a multi-pronged effort to overcome those gerrymanders — an effort that has had mixed success. Lawsuits got state courts to overturn several of the worst pro-GOP gerrymanders Democrats likely would not hold the House today if not for those decisions. A couple more states, most notably Michigan, put commissions rather than legislatures in charge of redistricting. But Democrats suffered bitter defeats as well. Reforms at the congressional level have gone nowhere due to the Senate filibuster.

And Democrats failed to make much progress flipping state legislative chambers. According to a tally by Stephen Wolf for Daily Kos Elections , Republicans have sole control of line-drawing for 38 percent of House districts, and Democrats only have 16 percent.

The rest of the country has either divided partisan control of the process or has handed it off to commissions. Overall, then, the GOP will quite likely gain an advantage in taking back the House, but just how much of an advantage is still up in the air.

These are the easiest to predict — Republican-controlled states will try to draw pro-Republican maps, and Democratic-controlled states will try to draw pro-Democratic maps.

The problem for Democrats: Republicans simply control more of these states. Other GOP-controlled states: Republicans control the redistricting process in 14 more states, most of which are solidly red. The party has the chance to knock out several Republican seats there — as many as five, according to the New York Times. Illinois is the only other big state where Democrats control map-drawing, but their gains there will likely be smaller.

Other Democratic-controlled states: Democrats have full control over map-drawing in five more states, but they have fewer opportunities to make gains — those opportunities appear to be for one seat in Maryland where a Democratic legislative supermajority can cut out Republican Gov.