The Salamander District That Named the Practice

On March 26, 1812, Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a redistricting bill that carved Essex County into a state senate district shaped like nothing in nature. A Boston Gazette cartoonist drew the district as a winged dragon, and an editor coined a portmanteau on the spot: Gerry-mander. The word stuck. The governor lost his next election but kept the etymology.

The technique itself predates the cartoon. Drawing district lines to favor one party is as old as drawing district lines. There are two main moves. Packing concentrates the opposition's voters into as few districts as possible, where they win huge majorities that don't translate into seats. Cracking does the opposite — splits opposition voters across many districts so they fall short in each.

Modern computational mapping has made both moves more precise. The 2010 redistricting cycle, the first to use voter-file software at scale, produced North Carolina and Pennsylvania maps that researchers calculated would deliver a particular party advantage in something like 99 percent of plausible election outcomes. Several were eventually struck down by state courts.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering claims are political questions federal courts cannot decide. State constitutions remain a check, and Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and others have invalidated maps under their own. A handful of states — Michigan, Arizona, California — have moved redistricting to independent commissions. The salamander, two centuries on, still has plenty of swamp to swim in.