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Partisan Gerrymandering and the Political Process: Effects on Roll-Call Voting and State Policies

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Abstract

Recent scholarship has documented the advantages of a new measure of partisan gerrymandering: The difference in the parties' wasted votes, divided by the total number of votes cast. This measure, known as the efficiency gap (EG), can be calculated directly from aggregate vote totals, facilitating comparison of the severity of party gerrymandering across states and time. In this article, we conduct the first analysis of the EG's effects on legislative representation and policymaking in the states. We first show that the partisan outcome of legislative elections has important causal effects on the ideological representation of individual districts, the ideological composition of legislative chambers, and the conservatism of state policymaking. We then show that variation in the EG across state-years is associated with systematic differences in the ideological location of the median state legislator and in the conservatism of state policies. These results suggest that partisan gerrymandering has major consequences not only for who wins elections but for the political process as a whole. Keywords: redistricting, gerrymandering, state politics, representation, legislatures

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... Beyond producing "bizarrely-shaped" districts, that are not geographically compact or cohesive, gerrymandering appears to impact policy-making. Empirical studies find that gerrymandering affects the quality of political candidates (Stephanopoulos and Warshaw 2020), the ideological position of legislators (Jeong and Shenoy 2022;Caughey et al. 2017;Shotts 2003), roll-call voting behavior (Jones and Walsh 2018), the ideological slant of the policies passed (Caughey et al. 2017), and the allocation of public resources (Stashko 2020). This impact provides an unfair advantage to the party of the gerrymanderer. ...
... Beyond producing "bizarrely-shaped" districts, that are not geographically compact or cohesive, gerrymandering appears to impact policy-making. Empirical studies find that gerrymandering affects the quality of political candidates (Stephanopoulos and Warshaw 2020), the ideological position of legislators (Jeong and Shenoy 2022;Caughey et al. 2017;Shotts 2003), roll-call voting behavior (Jones and Walsh 2018), the ideological slant of the policies passed (Caughey et al. 2017), and the allocation of public resources (Stashko 2020). This impact provides an unfair advantage to the party of the gerrymanderer. ...
... [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][24][25][26][27] Also crucial is who holds what power to implement the specified political ideology, as shaped by laws affecting who can vote, voter turnout and voter suppression, demarcation of political district boundaries (including gerrymandering), political donations, and who is declared to be an election winner. [1][2][3][4][5]22,28 A lack of public health research addressing political ideology and concentrations of political power is thus worrisome. ...
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Our descriptive study examined current associations (2022–2024) between US state-level health outcomes and 4 US state-level political metrics: 2 rarely used in public health research (political ideology of elected representatives based on voting records; trifectas, where 1 party controls the executive and legislative branches) and 2 more commonly used (state policies enacted; voter political lean). The 8 health outcomes spanned the life course: infant mortality, premature mortality (death at age <65), health insurance (adults aged 35–64), vaccination for children and persons aged ≥65 (flu; COVID-19 booster), maternity care deserts, and food insecurity. For the first 3 outcomes, we also examined trends in associations (2012–2024). For all political metrics, higher state-level political conservatism was associated with worse health outcomes, especially for the metrics for political ideology and state trifectas. For example, in 2016, the premature mortality rate in states with Republican vs Democratic trifectas was higher by 55.4 deaths per 100 000 person-years (95% CI: 7.7, 103.1), and the slope of the rate of increase to 2021 was also higher, by 27.0 deaths per 100 000 person-years (95% CI: 24.4, 29.7). These results suggest elections, political ideology, and concentrations of political power matter for population health.
... The third insight of a traditional literature review is that recent work has continued exploring the effects of gerrymandering on various outcomes including incumbency advantage (Henderson, Hamel, and Goldzimer 2018); electoral competition (Cottrell 2019); candidate quality and emergence (Williamson 2019); roll-call voting and state policy (Caughey, Tausanovitch, and Warshaw 2017); political parties (Stephanopoulos and Warshaw 2020); campaign contributions (Crespin and Edwards 2016); and constituent access (Niven, Cover, and Solimine 2021). Our network also captures these relationships as dyadic connections, but can further illuminate downstream causal chains, confounding concepts, and multiple causal paths. ...
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Understanding the gaps and connections across existing theories and findings is a perennial challenge in scientific research. Systematically reviewing scholarship is especially challenging for researchers who may lack domain expertise, including junior scholars or those exploring new substantive territory. Conversely, senior scholars may rely on long-standing assumptions and social networks that exclude new research. In both cases, ad hoc literature reviews hinder accumulation of knowledge. Scholars are rarely systematic in selecting relevant prior work or then identifying patterns across their sample. To encourage systematic, replicable, and transparent methods for assessing literature, we propose an accessible network-based framework for reviewing scholarship. In our method, we consider a literature as a network of recurring concepts (nodes) and theorized relationships among them (edges). Network statistics and visualization allow researchers to see patterns and offer reproducible characterizations of assertions about the major themes in existing literature. Critically, our approach is systematic and powerful but also low cost; it requires researchers to enter relationships they observe in prior studies into a simple spreadsheet—a task accessible to new and experienced researchers alike. Our open-source R package enables researchers to leverage powerful network analysis while minimizing software-specific knowledge. We demonstrate this approach by reviewing redistricting literature.
... As a result, the party in control of the trifecta can introduce and pass bills that are consistent with their policy priorities, and the priorities of their donors, regardless of public opinion. Acknowledging that both parties take advantage of this situation, Republican politicians have become particularly adept at swiftly lining up behind specific issues (e.g., Caughey et al., 2017). ...
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... Indeed, the relationship between the distribution of partisan support in the electorate and the partisan composition of the government-what (Powell 2004) calls "vote-seat representation"-is a critical link in the longer representational chain between citizens' preferences and governments' policies. If the relationship between votes and seats systematically advantages one group over another, then some citizens will enjoy more influence-more "voice"-over elections and political outcomes than others (Caughey, Tausanovitch, and Warshaw 2017). ...
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This article provides an overview of the new congressional and state legislative districts that were drawn around the country during the 2021–2022 redistricting cycle. We provide background on the redistricting landscape, most notably the changing federal role in both partisan and minority representation. We also discuss the process used to draw the new districts in each state. We then provide an empirical look at partisan fairness, competitiveness, and minority representation in the new plans. We find that both parties have enacted increasingly extreme partisan gerrymanders when they control the redistricting process. The combination of Republicans’ control of the redistricting process in far more states than Democrats and the inefficient concentration of Democrats in cities has enabled Republicans to largely maintain an advantage in the translation of votes to seats in both Congress and many state legislatures. As a result, the policymaking process in many states will continue to be skewed in a conservative direction. At the same time, nonpartisan commissions appear to offer a consistent means to produce less biased and more competitive maps than when parties drawn the lines. Finally, while Black and Latino representation has improved in some places, both groups of voters remain underrepresented. We conclude by discussing lessons for both scholars and advocates.
... Ayrıntılı bilgi için bkz.:Hunter, 2011. 8 Partizan gerrymandering konusunda bkz.Caughey, Tausanovitch, Warshaw, 2017; Engstrom, 2013. 9 Bkz.Cox & Holden, 2011: 564-579;Pierce, Larson & Beckett, 2011;Anderson & Dahlstrom, 1990. ...
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Tavsiye Edilen Atıf : Aktan, C. C. (2022). “Hileli Seçim Bölgesi Taksimatı (Gerrymandering): Kamu Tercihi Perspektifi”, Sosyal ve Beşeri Bilimler Dergisi , 14 (1). Gerrymandering (hileli seçim bölgesi taksimatı) bir siyasi partinin oylarını arttırmak ve seçimi kazanmak, diğer taraftan rakip siyasi partinin oy sayılarını azaltmak gaye-siyle seçim çevresini hileli bir şekilde yeniden dizayn etmeye yönelik politik manipü-lasyon girişimidir. Burada bir siyasi parti ya da adayın lehine seçim bölgesi sınırları-nın manipüle edilmesi söz konusudur. Bu çalışmada hileli seçim bölgesi taksimatı kavramının ne anlama geldiği, kavramın ortaya çıkış hikâyesi, türleri, etki ve sonuçla-rı özet olarak incelenmektedir. İlave olarak hileli seçim bölgesi taksimatı işleyişine dair bazı basit örnekler sunulmaktadır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Gerrymandering, Hileli Seçim Bölgesi Taksimatı, Kamu Tercihi Alan Tanımı: Kamu Tercihi, Siyaset Bilimi GERRYMANDERING: PUBLIC CHOICE PERSPECTIVE Abstract Gerrymandering is a political manipulation attempt to fraudulently redesign the elec-toral district in order to increase the votes of a political party and win the election, while reducing the number of votes of the rival political party. Here, there is a manipu-lation of electoral constituency boundaries in favor of a political party or a candida-te. The practice of dividing a territorial unit into election districts results in an unfair advantage to some political parties and candidates in elections. In this study, the me-aning of gerrymandering, the story of the emergence of the concept, its types, effects and results are briefly examined. In addition, some simple examples of gerrymandering are presented. Key Words: Gerrymandering, Elections, Electoral Systems, Redistricting, Public Cho-ice. JEL Codes: D72, D78, H10, K16
... This debate, however, is inextricably tied to the ways in which institutions shape the caliber of representation. Although close attention has been paid to the ways in which the design of electoral systems affects representation (e.g., Caughey, Tausanovitch, and Warshaw 2017), the impact of specific regulatory institutions on the quality of representation has not been studied as extensively. ...
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Does public campaign financing improve representation by reducing politicians' reliance on wealthy donors as advocates claim, or does it worsen representation by expanding the candidate marketplace to give extreme and nonrepresentative candidates an electoral boost? We conduct a novel analysis of public financing programs in Arizona, Connecticut, and Maine to causally identify the effect of a legislator's funding status on how closely she represents constituent preferences. Using multiple identification strategies, we show that candidates who exclusively use public campaign financing are more extreme and less representative of their districts than nonpublicly financed candidates. Our findings add new evidence to the electoral reform debate by demonstrating how replacing private campaign donations with public financing can actually damage substantive representation. We also advance the scholarship on how institutions affect substantive representation and candidate positioning as they respond to new campaign financing structures.
... Examples abound of the extreme tilting of the scales made possible by an efficient gerrymander in which, for example, a party attracting less than half the vote can win more than 75 percent of the seats in a legislature (King and Browning, 1987). This process ultimately has enormous implications for representation, of course, as gerrymandered legislatures, unmoored from traditional electoral accountability, are apt to pursue more extreme policy priorities (Caughey, Tausanovitch, and Warshaw, 2017). ...
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Objective We consider proximity and access to the district offices of members of Congress to explore whether gerrymandering affects individuals’ capacity to be heard and thus impairs their representation. Methods In a study of six states, we conduct more than 123 million distance measurements to identify residents whose closest district office is in the wrong congressional district. Based on survey results, we then estimate the likelihood that such mismatched individuals will personally visit the office of their member of Congress. Results We find that in five gerrymandered states, between 28.7 and 47.5 percent of residents have a mismatched closest district office, a rate several times higher than in a non‐gerrymandered state. Extrapolating from survey results, we find that mismatched residents are 38 percent less likely to visit their own district office, and that across five states gerrymandering effectively deters nearly 600,000 office visits over a two‐year congressional session. Conclusion Of significance in both the legal and scholarly arena, we find that gerrymandering increases the prevalence of mismatched district offices, thereby impeding constituents from making in‐person visits that are widely viewed as the most effective mechanism for communicating their opinions and needs to Congress. We believe this heretofore undocumented mismatch warrants additional scholarly consideration of gerrymandering's effects on individual's access to tangible aspects of representation.
... The second goal is to explore the consequences of a large partisan advantage on downstream outcomes of interest. Warshaw & Stephanopoulos (2019) and Caughey et al. (2017) have done some of this work, looking at the consequences for parties as institutions and for broad political and policy outcomes, respectively. Many more outcomes can be explored, including but not limited to more detailed policy areas (such as public finance, the welfare state, and social policy), estimates of public opinion on topics like trust and approval, the quality of the correspondence between public opinion and representation, and the degree of polarization among elites. ...
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Recent years have seen a tremendous surge of public interest in partisan gerrymandering, including robust reform efforts and multiple high-profile court cases. Political scientists have played an important role in this debate, reaching an unusually high level of public engagement. Yet this public-facing period has to some extent obscured promising avenues for future research within the discipline. I review the history of political science and redistricting and describe how research on this topic has been shaped by the newfound interest. The goals of the law differ from those of political science, so research that focuses squarely on the former often misses opportunities to advance the latter. I lay out the contours of this difference and then suggest reframing the existing metrics of partisan gerrymandering to make them useful for more traditionally scientific questions. Finally, I offer some ideas about what those future questions might look like when reframed in this way.
... There is certainly ample evidence for the second step in the selection mechanism, partisan effects on policy. At the state level, for example, electing Democrats rather than Republicans leads to much more liberal legislative representation and to modestly more liberal state policies (Shor and McCarty 2011;Caughey, Tausanovitch, and Warshaw 2017;Caughey, Warshaw, and Xu 2017;Fowler and Hall 2017). In the legislature, partisan effects on policy seem to be driven predominantly by shifts in majority control, with the size of the majority having little independent effect on policy (Caughey, Warshaw, and Xu 2017). ...
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Using eight decades of data, we examine the magnitude, mechanisms, and moderators of dynamic responsiveness in the American states. We show that on both economic and (especially) social issues, the liberalism of state publics predicts future change in state policy liberalism. Dynamic responsiveness is gradual, however; large policy shifts are the result of the cumulation of incremental responsiveness over many years. Partisan control of government appears to mediate only a fraction of responsiveness, suggesting that, contrary to conventional wisdom, responsiveness occurs in large part through the adaptation of incumbent officials. Dynamic responsiveness has increased over time but does not seem to be influenced by institutions such as direct democracy or campaign finance regulations. We conclude that our findings, though in some respects normatively ambiguous, on the whole paint a reassuring portrait of statehouse democracy.
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