Gerrymandering has been a part of American politics as long as there has been American politics.  It has been a focus of some of the concern expressed by proponents of Prop 20 and opponents of Prop 27.  We should look a bit closer at what gerrymandering is, how it effects California, and how it effects the nation.

The first efforts at gerrymandering came in Virginia, when Patrick Henry and the anti-Federalists attempted to draw the Congressional districts in Virginia in a manner to prevent the election of James Madison to the First Congress.  The name came about for Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts after the 1810 redistricting, where one of the districts resembled a salamander.

In recent years, gerrymandering has taken on the meaning of redistricting to produce a specific electoral result, whether it is to ensure incumbency.  While creating districts to ensure specific racial representation is not Constitutional, partisan redistricting to the same effect is allowed.

So, how does this apply to California?

State Assembly and State Senate districts have some definite anomalies in how they have been drawn that might suggest gerrymandering.  A district like Senate District 18 with its hook into east Bakersfield may not pass the sniff test.  So, the question becomes one of whether these districts are being drawn for the reasons of typical gerrymandering, or if they are accidents of population layout.

Traditional reasons of keeping incumbents in power has less application in a situation where there are term limits, although party retention of the seat will apply.  Looking at the carving of Fresno and Bakersfield for this district, one might expect it, but a typical sign of a district so gerrymandered would be a closer split in registrations.  The Democrats have a 51-31 edge in registrations in the district and consequently the Republicans didn’t even challenge for the seat in 2006.

California Assembly districts are even more uniform than those for the senate.

Probably the strongest accusation against California’s districting has been that some districts have been drawn to keep incumbents in their seats.  Perhaps the strongest example of this is the California 11th Congressional District, which is drawn with a stretch going up I-680, then down through the mountains to Morgan Hill then across to the Central Valley up to Tracy and Lodi, with a tongue separating Manteca.  When the district was drawn, one of the most conservative members of the House was in this seat, Richard Pombo.  Prior to the 2000 redistricting, the 11th was primarily in Sacramento and San Joaquin Counties.  Those sections in Sacramento County were added to the third district, increasing its Republican majority, but retaining enough Republican votes to theoretically keep Pombo safe.  This worked in 2002 and 2004 — his percentages of the electorate were even higher than in 2000 — but Jerry McNerney pulled off the win in 2006.

Other examples in California, such as the 23rd Congressional District, are justifiable to consolidate an interest group (coastal interests.)  At the level of the House of Representatives, there are some districts that may be imperfect, but overall the redistricting provides a reasonable representation of California to the House.

This can be contrasted to the gerrymandering present in other states.  The most notorious is Texas, where a second redistricting, in 2003, cracked Travis County, a predominantly democratic county, into three separate predominantly republican districts.  This gerrymandering caused a swing of 6 seats from the Democrats to the Republicans in the 2004 election.

California faces many problems, but it seems clear to me that redistricting is not one of them.