Gerrymandering in Local Governments

• In Event: Gerrymandering and Redistricting

Abstract

The relationship between votes and seats in the legislature lies at the heart of democratic governance. There is a large literature that examines gerrymandering in state legislative and congressional elections. It finds that gerrymandering has caused durable partisan bias in the translations of votes to seats in legislative elections across the country, and this has led to a host of negative, downstream consequences for elections and representation. However, there is no prior literature on partisan gerrymandering in local governments. This is surprising given the central role that local governments, such as cities, counties, and school boards, play in our democracy.

In this project, we plan to undertake the first comprehensive study of partisan bias in the districting plans for city council and county legislative elections. First, we will assemble a large-scale dataset with information on thousands of local government elections over the past two decades. We will use this new dataset to measure partisan advantage in hundreds of city council and county legislative districting plans using a variety of metrics (e.g., efficiency gap, symmetry, mean-median gap, declination). Next, we will examine the causes of partisan bias. Most importantly, does partisan control of the redistricting process in local governments lead to partisan bias in the districting plans? Finally, we will examine the policy consequences of gerrymandering in local governments. Does a pro-Republican bias in the districting process lead to more conservative policy outcomes? Our findings have implications for literatures on local politics and federalism. They also have implications for the study of political representation in the United States. Finally, our study is extremely timely given the pending decennial redistricting will lead to new legislative maps in states, cities, and counties across the country.

Authors

• Christopher Warshaw, George Washington University

• Laura Royden, Harvard University