{"id":1784903,"date":"2018-02-01T18:53:15","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T23:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1784903"},"modified":"2018-02-01T18:53:52","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T23:53:52","slug":"the-gerrymanderers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/02\/the-gerrymanderers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gerrymanderers"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we talk about gerrymandering, about redrawing the political map to favour one’s own party at the expense of another, we talk a lot about the maps themselves. The mapmakers, not so much. Check out this\u00a0New York Times<\/em> article on the political consultants who do the redrawing<\/a>; it focuses on the electoral map of Maryland, which like several other states’ maps is the focus of a court challenge. The process has become even more refined as more and more data becomes available to feed into the redistricting maw.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Times<\/em> article points to a similar, earlier article that appeared in the October 2012 issue of\u00a0The Atlantic<\/em>\u00a0and goes into even more depth: “The League of Dangerous Mapmakers<\/a>.” [Leventhal<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we talk about gerrymandering, about redrawing the political map to favour one’s own party at the expense of another, we talk a lot about the maps themselves. The mapmakers, not so much. Check out… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[330],"tags":[534,535,1132,140],"class_list":["post-1784903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-politics","tag-electoral-districts","tag-gerrymandering","tag-maryland","tag-new-york-times","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1784859,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/01\/redrawing-congressional-districts-in-pennsylvania\/","url_meta":{"origin":1784903,"position":0},"title":"Redrawing Congressional Districts in Pennsylvania","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"25 January 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"In gerrymandering news, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out the state's congressional district map earlier this week, ordering the 18 districts\u2014which have been called some of the most gerrymandered in the United States\u2014to be redrawn in time for the 2018 elections. The New York Times explores how the Pennsylvania map\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/nyt-pa-gerrymander-1024x256.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/nyt-pa-gerrymander-1024x256.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/nyt-pa-gerrymander-1024x256.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/nyt-pa-gerrymander-1024x256.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3340,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/11\/gerrymandered-congressional-districts\/","url_meta":{"origin":1784903,"position":1},"title":"Gerrymandered Congressional Districts","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"8 November 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"In 2014 the\u00a0Washington Post\u2019s Christopher Ingraham reported on the\u00a0most gerrymandered congressional districts in the United States. The article was\u00a0accompanied by an\u00a0interactive map, showing the compactness score\u00a0Ingraham calculated for each district\u2014the more compact an electoral district, the less likely it's a gerrymander. [Dave Smith] (Gerrymandering\u2014manipulating electoral district boundaries for political advantage\u2014has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"wapost-gerrymander","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/wapost-gerrymander-1024x687.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/wapost-gerrymander-1024x687.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/wapost-gerrymander-1024x687.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/wapost-gerrymander-1024x687.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2208,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/06\/there-is-more-to-gerrymandering-than-ugly-shapes\/","url_meta":{"origin":1784903,"position":2},"title":"‘There Is More to Gerrymandering Than Ugly Shapes’","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"13 June 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"On the liberal political blog Daily Kos, Stephen Wolf argues that it takes more than a weirdly shaped electoral district to make a gerrymander: Land does not vote and\u00a0we can\u2019t judge gerrymanders simply based on geometry. Districts aren\u2019t just abstract shapes on a map, but collections of actual people and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1791870,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2021\/10\/a-redistricting-roundup\/","url_meta":{"origin":1784903,"position":3},"title":"A Redistricting Roundup","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"12 October 2021","format":"link","excerpt":"Gerrymandering in Texas The New York Times and Texas Monthly look at the bizarre shapes in the new congressional electoral map of Texas, which gains two new representatives. Texas Monthly\u2019s Dan Solomon: \u201cAcross the state, there will be one more majority-Anglo district than under the prior map, and one fewer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/nytimes-texas-gerrymander-1024x485.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/nytimes-texas-gerrymander-1024x485.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/nytimes-texas-gerrymander-1024x485.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/nytimes-texas-gerrymander-1024x485.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1833848,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/08\/the-map-men-on-gerrymandering\/","url_meta":{"origin":1784903,"position":4},"title":"The Map Men on Gerrymandering","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"31 August 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cwBslntC3xg The Map Men look at gerrymandering on U.S. electoral district maps. A reasonably comprehensive primer on the subject even if comes from a couple of Brits baffled by the subject. And they finish with a surprisingly sharp point: gerrymanderers wouldn\u2019t know how to draw maps like these if voting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/cwBslntC3xg\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1440399,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/01\/north-carolinas-gerrymandered-congressional-district-map-ruled-unconstitutional\/","url_meta":{"origin":1784903,"position":5},"title":"North Carolina’s Gerrymandered Congressional District Map Ruled Unconstitutional","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"10 January 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"North Carolina's congressional district map has been ruled unconstitutional by a panel of federal judges, the\u00a0New York Times reports. Significantly, it's because the map represented a\u00a0partisan gerrymander, engineered to ensure a Republican stranglehold on North Carolina's congressional delegation, rather than a\u00a0racial gerrymander. Partisan gerrymanders have not previously been considered illegal;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/nc-gerrymander-2016-300x117.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1784903"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1784905,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784903\/revisions\/1784905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1784903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1784903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1784903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}