Racial Malapportionment Drift in America

• In Event: Gerrymandering, Race and Voting in the US

Abstract

Can it be strategically advantageous for mapmakers to limit changes to congressional district boundaries? This paper introduces the concept of ‘racial malapportionment drift’: vote dilution that occurs when minimal-change maps confront demographic shifts. I create four geographical measures of congressional
district change and calculate an original composite indicator of district and state change across two redistricting cycles (2010 and 2020). Using these new measures, I demonstrate that states with long and troubled histories of racial exclusion made persistently fewer changes to their districts over these redistricting cycles than other states, even as their non-white population grew, and their white population shrank. I model statistically the relationships between racial demographics, partisanship, redistricting
authorities, and the extent of district change. My evidence underscores both the partisan strategic value and the unequal racial burden of minimal-change maps. I find that Hispanic districts are less changeable than less-Hispanic districts. In the 2010 cycle I find that districts in states with Republican-led redistricting changed more than districts in states where commissions or courts handled map-drawing. By contrast in the 2020 cycle, Republican-led redistricting produced less change than their Democratic counterparts,
as lawmakers sought to entrench partisan advantage. The two-period measurement reveals strategic imperatives at play for mapmakers in two successive redistricting cycles.

Author

• Ursula Hackett, Royal Holloway, University of London