The name “Gerrymandering” originated in 1812, when Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry created twisty districts, one of which resembled a salamander, so the story goes. I’m sure the practice of creating districts for partisan advantage is older still.
When it all started, creating districts was labor-intensive and difficult. In our modern computer-driven era, it’s trivial. Partisans can generate hundreds (or thousands) of district maps and have computers evaluate them. Academics create millions of maps.
It all rests on our system by which millions of citizens elect just a few hundred representatives.
If you are inclined to dig into this endless topic to gain some appreciation of the complexity, here are a few references I have reviewed. You can easily find 100s more, and spend as many hours, days, or weeks as you please.
- wikipedia provides a good (and long) overview of the history and mechanics of how gerrymandering operates.
- The gerrymandering mess, by Erwin Chemerinsky, 2026. This is a well-written piece arguing that SCOTUS should overturn Rucho, and “devise standards” to rein in gerrymandering. It’s a thoughtful piece with a lot of good information and ideas, but it leans toward judicial activism and, in my view, treats gerrymandering more as the disease than a symptom. Even “fair” districts normally fail to represent many constituents in our partisan system.
- Partisan Gerrymandering and the Efficiency Gap, Stephanopoulos and McGhee, 2015. This is a 70-page scholarly article that I only skimmed, because I wanted to understand their proposed “efficiency gap” as a possibly useful metric for constraining gerrymandering in practice. Their ideas have merit, but I think their paper serves mainly to underscore the complexity of solving this problem procedurally.
- Relevant rulings:
- Rucho v. Common Cause, 2019 — Holding: Partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.
- Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens, 2025 — allowed Texas redistricting to proceed.
- Tangipa v. Newsom, 2026 — allowed California AB 604 and Prop 50 to proceed.