Parasitic Gerrymandering

When politicians pick their voters instead of voters picking their representatives, democracy suffers. Gerrymandering is like rigging a game of Tetris, surgically drawing districts to entrench one party’s power. This tactic is being done by both Democrats and Republicans, as the two-party system has an interest in suppressing legitimate independent competition. This is a parasite our founders didn’t foresee: extremely gerrymandered maps that decide who governs, what gets a vote, and whose voice gets drowned out. This and other unethical norms disenfranchise the everyday voter. Less people are voting in primaries and general elections which are skewing outcomes. The result is entire communities across our nation with representatives they didn’t truly choose. What else happens?

• Voter power shrinks: Extreme maps convert modest vote margins into veto-proof majorities, insulating lawmakers from electoral accountability and dampening turnout.

• Polarization grows: Safe seats reward the loudest primaries, not the broadest coalitions, pushing legislatures toward obstruction over problem-solving.

• Communities are sliced up: Packing and cracking dilute communities of color and shared-interest neighborhoods, weakening their policy influence.

How NC got here & Why it’s a danger:

North Carolina’s recent history reads like a case study in racial line-drawing to lock in power. Federal courts found that the General Assembly’s 2011 congressional map packed Black voters into Districts 1 and 12, making race the predominant factor without a lawful justification; the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed those findings in Cooper v. Harris in 2017. At the same time, a three-judge federal panel ruled that 28 state legislative districts were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders in the Covington litigation, a remedy the Supreme Court largely let stand in 2017–18. These weren’t close calls or ancient history. These are recent and repeated judgments that North Carolina’s maps crossed constitutional lines. Supreme Court

Does this look like fair representation to you?

North Carolina’s 14 Congressional Districts

Yet even after those racial gerrymanders were struck, the game simply shifted from race to partisanship. In Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court declared partisan gerrymandering a “political question” beyond the reach of federal courts, effectively inviting state politicians to judge their own handiwork. North Carolina’s experience shows the consequence: after a brief period in which state courts policed extreme maps, the state supreme court reversed course in Harper v. Hall, saying partisan-gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable under the state constitution and handing the pen back to the very legislature whose maps sparked the lawsuits. The result has been a fresh round of aggressive maps and rolling litigation over racial vote dilution in the 2024 and 2026 cycles.

Calling this a neutral “leave it to the states” approach is civics cosplay. When federal courts step back on partisan gerrymandering, and state courts green-light the maps drawn by state politicians, the referee’s whistle goes silent. In places with long histories of discrimination, and after Shelby County v. Holder gutted federal preclearance, the result is weakened safeguards against both racial and partisan manipulation. That is not vigilant constitutional stewardship; it is abdication. For a nation that claims E pluribus unum, out of many, one - allowing engineered maps to predetermine representation is a breach of the promise that every vote counts.

So how do we fix it?

1) Independent or citizen redistricting commissions. Move line-drawing out of the hands of self-interested incumbents. Several states empower independent or bipartisan commissions to draw congressional and/or state legislative maps, with clear rules and public input. While designs vary, the core idea is the same: diversify who draws the map, constrain conflicts of interest, and make the process open. As of the latest election cycle, nine states use commissions for congressional maps, with others using hybrids for legislative maps.

Evidence suggests commissions reduce extreme partisan bias when they are genuinely independent - no elected officials as commissioners, transparent, and bound by clear criteria. Early results from states like Colorado and Michigan where citizen commissions worked under bright-line rules and open meetings showed measurably fairer plans and more competitive districts compared with prior, legislature-run cycles. Design choices that matter:

• Bar current politicians, party officers, lobbyists, and big contractors from serving.

• Balance partisan affiliations and include independents.

• Use supermajority voting rules to force consensus.

• Require on-the-record reasoning and publish all data.

2) Enforceable, neutral map-drawing criteria. Legislate and constitutionalize criteria that line-drawers must follow and that courts can enforce. Typical guardrails include:

• Equal population and contiguity (constitutional baselines).

• Compliance with the Voting Rights Act and protection of communities of interest.

• Compactness and respect for political subdivisions (cities, counties).

• Partisan-fairness standards that discourage durable asymmetries (for example, symmetry tests or limits on “wasted votes,” known as the efficiency gap).

3) Radical transparency and public participation. Require public map submissions, publish all datasets and draft maps, and hold livestreamed hearings with written explanations for every revision. Sunshine won’t solve everything but it makes surgical bias harder and gives courts a record to review. Reform groups and legal scholars consistently cite transparency and participation as pillars of durable reforms.

4) Independent judicial review under state constitutions. Because federal courts won’t police partisan gerrymandering, state courts must. Reform paths include explicitly banning partisan gerrymandering in state constitutions and giving courts clear authority and timelines to appoint special masters when legislatures or commissions fail. Moore v. Harper confirms that ordinary state judicial review applies.

5) Technical safeguards and open methods. Use open-source software, auditable code, and clear statistical checks to evaluate proposed maps. Many states and watchdogs now run efficiency gap diagnostics to flag outliers before they become law and to document them if they do.

What citizens and policymakers can do now? Push for commissions with strong conflict-of-interest rules and supermajority voting. Codify fairness and transparency in statutes now, and in constitutions when possible. Resource state courts and set fast, clear remedial paths when maps flunk the rules. Measure what you value: require public release of all inputs, code, and metrics used to evaluate maps. Democracy isn’t just about counting votes; it’s about making votes count equally. The tools exist to end the era of politicians choosing their voters. All that’s missing is the will to use them.

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