One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy

by Carol Anderson

The U.S. Constitution, therefore, requires that legislative boundaries be drawn every decade after the Census to align and realign congressional representatives with population shifts and changes. From the very beginning, however, chicanery was afoot. Revolutionary hero Patrick Henry recognized that whoever drew those legislative district lines could reward friends with political power and simultaneously banish enemies into the electoral wilderness. He therefore went after his nemesis James Madison to keep him out of Congress. Henry convinced the Virginia legislature to manipulate the boundaries of his enemy’s district so that the election eventually pitted Madison against the revered James Monroe for the coveted seat. In 1810, when Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry drew a district in the shape of a salamander to corral his rivals and neutralize their influence, the term “gerrymander” became a descriptive and ongoing part of the American political lexicon and life. By the late nineteenth century, gerrymandering was so pervasive and disruptive that President Benjamin Harrison called it nothing but “political robbery.”9 Two distinct types of gerrymandering emerged on the American landscape. One was racial; the other, partisan. Both were lethal.