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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nTo do this, one must \u201ccrack,\u201d by diluting the voting power of the opposing party across many districts, and \u201cpack\u201d the opposing party into only a few districts. This causes an unfair and unrepresentative result. However, \u201cIt\u2019s just too tempting of a tool to use,\u201d says Brinker when describing state governments who employ the tactic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brinker conducted research that looked into how partisan bias affects the use of gerrymandering across the country. Partisan bias is how far districts deviate from being perfectly proportional to the citizens that they represent. His research found that states with higher partisan bias often have more extreme laws and gerrymandering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPartisan bias has an enormous impact on the issues addressed in a given state,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, take any hotly-debated issue. A state might be split 51\/49 on the issue, but because of partisan bias, the party that holds the slim majority can use that power to impose extreme laws regarding the issue on the entire population. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPartisan bias often results in governments imposing more extreme laws on its citizens,\u201d Brinker said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brinker also found a high correlation between a state with a large partisan bias and the election of the corresponding party\u2019s candidates. Because of these partisan policies and gerrymandering, it makes it extremely difficult for opposing candidates to be elected, despite holding a significant part of the electorate. When asked by an attendee if situations like this affect voter\u2019s rights, Brinker said, \u201cIt absolutely takes away the rights of voters.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The question of whether or not gerrymandering is constitutional has been brought to the nation\u2019s highest court a number of times throughout the last century. More recently, in 2019, the High Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause<\/em> that the issue of partisan gerrymandering is a political question and not one that should be brought to the federal government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties, with no plausible grant of authority in the Constitution, and no legal standards to limit and direct their decisions,” said Chief Justice Roberts in his majority opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Traditionally, two solutions have been proposed to combat the problem: non-partisan commissions and a cap on partisan bias by a third party. Despite several states employing the solution of non-partisan commissions drawing their districts, Brinker disagrees, saying, \u201cThere are no \u2018non-partisan\u2019 commissions anymore.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n His concern with a so-called \u201ccap\u201d on partisan bias is the method used to calculate that bias and where to set the cap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe big hold-up is how do we set the threshold,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Attendees also expressed concern to this method, with one attendee asking, \u201cThe very process of setting the cap could become partisan. Then what?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Brinker then proposed the solution he believed to be best suited based on the research he had conducted. He prefaced by saying, \u201cThis solution precludes the need for a constitutional one.\u201d He proposes that officials from each party take turns drawing the districts, perhaps with the winning party going first to provide some advantage. This could result in equal amounts of partisan cracking and packing, in turn creating pseudo-proportional representation and limiting the adverse effects of one-sided gerrymandering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is a solution for the present moment,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Any fundamental change would have to take place at the congressional level in statutory law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Redistricting is in full swing across all 50 states, and in both Republican and Democratic states, it appears gerrymandering will continue to be used as a partisan tool, playing for the next election and not for democracy. BY AUSTIN RUFF Professor of Sociology, Dr. Gary D. Brinker, led a Times Talk on gerrymandering in the south study area of Forsyth Library this… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":61705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3398,11],"tags":[13914,14369,14368,637],"class_list":["post-61704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news","category-news","tag-austin-ruff","tag-gary-brinker","tag-gerrymandering","tag-times-talk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Gerrymandering-2.jpg?fit=1025%2C724&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61707,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61704\/revisions\/61707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/61705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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