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How do the choices made during congressional redistricting shape group representation, and what do six decades of data reveal about the influence of different institutions?

Image courtesy of interviewee. November 7, 2024

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This video discusses the process of congressional redistricting in the United States, which occurs every ten years following the census. It highlights that states have considerable flexibility in how they draw district lines, leading to various criteria influencing these decisions, such as compactness, maintaining political subdivision boundaries, and partisan advantage.

However, different redistricting institutions (e.g., legislatures, commissions, courts) often prioritize conflicting criteria, resulting in varying outcomes for representation based on the criteria selected. The paper examines how different institutions correlate with particular redistricting criteria and the implications of these choices for voter representation and political power.

It emphasizes that redistricting can significantly affect which groups gain representation and influence within legislatures, posing broader questions about democracy. Ultimately, the research indicates that there is no truly fair or neutral criterion for redistricting, as the selection of criteria inherently excludes others. The findings suggest potential avenues for reform, advocating for alignment between the goals of redistricting institutions and the preferences of constituents, especially regarding geographic versus partisan identities. Future research could further explore the incentives and constraints faced by these institutions and their impact on redistricting practices.

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Here are five key points from the video regarding the redistricting process in the United States:

1. **Redistricting Criteria and Political Goals**: Every ten years, states redraw congressional districts based on various criteria that often serve political goals, such as partisan advantage or maintaining town/county boundaries. These criteria dictate how communities and voters are grouped, potentially favoring certain political identities over others.

2. **Conflict of Criteria**: The selection of one redistricting criterion often excludes others, leading to conflicts. For instance, prioritizing compactness may limit the ability to achieve partisan objectives, illustrating that no set of criteria can address all community needs simultaneously.

3. **Impact of Institutions on Redistricting**: Different redistricting institutions (such as legislatures, independent commissions, and courts) correlate with different sets of criteria. For example, state courts tend to prioritize traditional criteria like compactness, while partisan legislatures may emphasize party advantage, reflecting their varying incentives and design.

4. **Consequences for Representation**: The ways in which districts are drawn have significant implications for political representation. If the criteria chosen by lawmakers do not align with how constituents identify or want to be represented, it raises concerns about the legitimacy and effectiveness of democratic processes.

5. **Call for Reform**: The video advocates for a closer examination of what constituents desire in terms of representation and suggests that reforms should aim to align redistricting practices with these preferences. This could involve assessing the criteria used and potentially identifying gaps where reforms can ensure fairer representation that reflects the community's geographic or social identities.

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Here are some key quotes and concepts extracted from the video regarding redistricting, its criteria, and the implications for representation and democracy:

1. **Infinite Possibilities of Districting**:
- “theoretically, you could have infinite possibilities for how these districts are drawn.”

2. **Criteria for Redistricting**:
- “the criteria are usually something like compactness or maintaining town or county political subdivision boundaries. It can be something else like partisan advantage, right?”

3. **Political Goals in Redistricting**:
- “these criteria are almost always essentially political goals of the people who are in charge of drawing these maps.”

4. **Conflict Among Criteria**:
- “some of these criteria are at the exclusion of other criteria… you have to prioritize certain criteria at the exclusion of others.”

5. **Different Institutions and Group Representation**:
- “when different institutions are in charge of the redistricting process, they correlate with other criteria... favoring one group of constituents, one identity for the constituents over another.”

6. **Gaps in Research**:
- “none of that research really speaks to this question... this project fills a gap in the scholarship.”

7. **Comprehensive Data Collection**:
- “I wanted to get as much data about as many of the redistricting institutions as I could… I approached as comprehensive as I could with the data available.”

8. **Redistricting Process**:
- “the redistricting institution has the opportunity to choose from infinite numbers of criteria, but they only choose some at the exclusion of others.”

9. **Correlations and Findings**:
- “what I ended up finding was that the redistricting criteria do conflict... each institution only correlates with one or a small number of criteria.”

10. **Differences Between Institutions**:
- “there are also differences... between the institutional design and purpose of a legislature or a court or a commission.”

11. **Redistricting and Political Power**:
- “redistricting is essentially a process where political elites are grouping people... based on their own elite goals and criteria.”

12. **Implications for Democracy**:
- “this becomes major questions... at the heart of representation, democracy, and political processes.”

13. **The Illusion of Fairness**:
- “there is no such thing as fair... there is no possibility for fair and neutral criteria.”

14. **Call for Reforms**:
- “the biggest possibility for reform here would be to look more closely at what do the people actually want...”

These quotes highlight the complexities and implications of the redistricting process, emphasizing the interplay between political goals, criteria conflicts, and the representation of constituents' identities.

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Every 10 years in the United States,

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every state is required to redraw their congressional,

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districts.

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And theoretically, you could have infinite possibilities for

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how these districts are drawn.

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So with a, a state like Maine, for example,

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where there's only two districts, you only have

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to draw one line, but you could draw that one line

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infinitely cutting up the population

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of the state into two groups, based on anything.

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So in order to, actually complete this task,

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because there are so many possibilities, you have

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to choose some sort of, guiding criteria, right?

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And so in reality, these criteria are usually,

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something like compactness or maintaining town

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or county political subdivision boundaries.

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It can be something else like partisan advantage, right?

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Helping Democrats or Republicans win.

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Um, and so in reality,

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these criteria are almost always essentially,

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political goals, of the people who are in charge

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of drawing these maps.

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Um, so in order to use one

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of these criteria, right, whether it's protecting town

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or county boundaries or,

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or partisan advantage, it requires people,

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it requires the people who are in charge of redistricting

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to conceive of the people

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who will be living in those districts by a specific group

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category, right?

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So with partisan advantage, you have to conceive

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of everybody living in that map as partisans, right?

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By their partisan identity.

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If it's, town

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or county, protection, then you're thinking of everybody

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in terms of their geographic identity, right?

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And so,

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therefore we have these kind of different criteria.

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Uh, you're grouping constituents

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and voters based on these externally

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imposed group categories.

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Um, and then this is where the, the kind

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of major wrinkle comes in that's critical for this,

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this research project, is that you can't choose all

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of the criteria, right?

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So some of these criteria are at the

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exclusion of other criteria.

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Uh, and so this is the competing criteria

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or conflicting criteria from the, from the title.

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So, because these criteria conflict with one another,

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you have to prioritize certain criteria

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at the exclusion of others.

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So, for example, if you prioritize compactness,

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maybe you aren't gonna be able to achieve goals of pars

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and advantage, or vice versa, right?

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So this paper really tries to put all these ideas together

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and show that when different institutions are in charge

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of the redistricting process, they correlate

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with different criteria, act the exclusion

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of other criteria.

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Uh, and the implications of this are

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that when you're favoring one category

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of group representation over the other,

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then you're doing, so, you're also favoring,

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one group of constituents, one identity

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for the constituents over another.

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So, for example, when you have a Democratic

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or Republican legislature, right,

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you are grouping people based on their party, group,

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their party identification, their party identity in terms

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of, kind of scholarship.

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There's been a lot of re research on

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redistricting and representation.

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Um, it makes sense. They go together.

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One, the purpose of redistricting is tied to representation.

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Uh, but none of that research really speaks

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to this question, or is kind of,

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most research on redistricting representation isn't kind of

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as broad as this project.

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So this project fills, a gap in the scholarship

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by essentially leveraging these empirical, metrics

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and, papers

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that people have done on specific criteria and specific groups.

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And then bringing in these more theoretical ideas about

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competing and conflicting criteria,

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from scholars like Bruce Kane,

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and kind of putting that all together in order to lead

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to these new conclusions, I wanted to take an approach

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that would be as comprehensive as possible.

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So I wanted to get as much data about as many

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of the redistricting institutions as I could, as well as,

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as many of the redistricting criteria as I could.

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Many studies are kind of focused on, one set

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of criteria, something like compactness.

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How does compactness vary

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among these different institutions?

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Uh, what I was really interested in is when I look at all

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of the different institutions that are active,

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how do they compare on every single criteria, right?

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So, first I kind

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of considered all the different redistricting institutions

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that are active in redistricting

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that have the responsibility of actually drawing those maps.

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And those would be legislatures, commissions, courts.

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Uh, and then I grouped those into subcategories of either

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partisan legislatures, Republican or democratic non-par

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or bipartisan legislatures, where they're split control,

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independent commissions, political commissions,

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and then state courts and federal courts.

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And then the second set of things, data

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that I needed was the redistricting criteria.

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Uh, and so I grouped those into four categories.

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There's partisan criteria, political criteria,

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minority representation criteria and traditional criteria.

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And this is where I was able to bring in

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and kind of build on the work that a lot

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of other scholars did,

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in developing these different metrics

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for measuring things like, compactness

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or, partisan advantage,

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and bring in my own measurements

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for things like minority representation.

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And so your research distinguishes itself

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'cause it's comprehensive, whereas they were just sort

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of se little tiny compartmentalized,

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Right? Exactly.

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Uh, my research was trying to be, it was trying

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to copy my, my, this project is trying

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to approximate the process of redistricting itself,

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where the redistricting institution has the opportunity

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to choose from infinite numbers of criteria,

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but they only choose some at the exclusion of others.

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So in order to do that, I needed a,

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a fairly comprehensive set of criteria.

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Um, there's possibility

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for a more comprehensive set in the future,

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but I, I approached as comprehensive as I could

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with the data available.

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Uh, and I ended up collecting data

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for six redistricting cycles.

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So redistricting takes place

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after the census has taken place in years that ended zero

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and prior to, elections that,

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in years that ended two.

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So I collected data for 19 72, 19 82, 19 92,

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2002, 2012, and 2022 for the analysis.

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What I did was, I used a bunch of,

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regression analyses to look at the correlations between

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redistricting institutions and these different criteria,

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and the, well kind

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of incorporating all the relevant control variables.

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But the idea was to identify

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where are there strong relationships

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between certain institutions and certain criteria.

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Uh, and what I ended up finding was

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that the redistricting criteria do conflict, right?

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You have each institution only correlates with a, with one

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or a small number of criteria, while there are kind

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of negative associations

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or no relationships, with many of the other criteria.

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So I'm able to kind of take those conclusions,

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those findings, and then draw conclusions from those,

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about how these institutions may be,

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categorizing constituents and voters.

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For example, when a state court draws a redistricting map,

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they correlate highly

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with traditional criteria such as compactness.

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Uh, and this requires treating constituents based on their

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geographic identity at the exclusion of other criteria,

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which could mean treating them with bipartisan

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or, minority identity.

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Instead, there are some important distinctions

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between these redistricting institutions that I look at,

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beyond just the, the criteria

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that they correlate with, right?

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So even though my findings show

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that there are differences in terms of the criteria

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that they're correlating with, there are also differences,

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major differences between the institutional design

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and purpose of a legislature or a court or a commission.

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Uh, so I, I think one of the things

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that really jumps out here is, state

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and federal courts kind

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of operate fundamentally differently in the redistricting

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realm than legislatures or commissions, right?

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So a, a commission may be designed explicitly

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for the creation of redistricting, right?

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The commission, their job,

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their sole purpose is congressional redistricting.

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Uh, a legislature has many different responsibilities,

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but they may be constitutionally, bound

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to do the redistricting process.

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State and federal courts will only get involved

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after those initial procedures fail, right?

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Something has to go wrong for the courts to get involved.

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And then other differences between these institutions are

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they face different constraints, right?

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Legislators have to get reelected.

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Uh, federal judges are appointed for life.

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Uh, they have different incentives,

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and likely they have different goals.

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So the data from my paper shows that

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these institutions make different maps.

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They correlate with different criteria.

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Uh, and really this is, the kind of next step

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for future research is that this is ripe for,

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for causal inference, right?

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How do these insti, how do these constraints

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and incentives for the different institutions,

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cause them to choose certain criteria?

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And maybe even also interestingly, are some

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of these criteria being chosen,

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accidentally or incidentally?

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And they are unaware of that, right?

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So they're, the kind of thinking about this in terms

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of partisan legislatures is pretty well known, right?

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Partisan, people who are associated with a party

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who have to run for reelection probably

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have partisan incentives.

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Uh, but for courts, for commissions, that's kind of ripe

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for more, research.

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And also the, one of the things, one

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of the key findings from this paper is that federal

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and state courts are often grouped together in a lot

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of this research, and they're

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treated as if they're the same.

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Uh, and these findings show that state

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and federal courts are making different maps.

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They are likely valuing different, aspects

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of law when they are drawing these maps.

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The broader implications from this, from the study is,

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is, if we think about it in a really abstract sense,

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redistricting is sometimes it's called, you know,

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politicians are choosing their voters.

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But I, I think we can think of it even more abstractly, that

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redistricting is essentially a process

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where political elites are grouping people, constituents

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and voters, the people, based on their own elite goals

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and criteria, right?

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So this has direct consequences for, which groups

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are represented and have political power,

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voting power in legislatures within specific districts,

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within states.

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Uh, but it also has major implications for democracy

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more generally, right?

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So simply put, if you have elites

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that are grouping people based on group identities

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that they don't agree with, right?

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If there's incongruence between the criteria

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that these institutions are using,

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and the identities that,

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people on the ground feel about themselves

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and they want to be represented,

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then this becomes major questions, kind of at the heart

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of representation, democracy, and political processes.

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In essence. One of the conclusions here is that there,

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there is no such thing as fair

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and neutral, criteria, right?

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This is, this is kind of Bruce Kane's,

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conclusion in his work in the eighties and nineties.

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And this puts some empirical teeth behind that to show

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that there, there is no possibility

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for fair and neutral criteria.

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Every criteria,

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is at the exclusion of some other criteria.

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But I do think that this paper provides a lot of information

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for voters, constituents, activists, reformers, who want

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to look at kind of

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where are the holes in the redistricting process?

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Where are there possibilities for reform?

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And I think really the, the biggest possibility

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for reform here would be to look more closely at

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what do the people actually want,

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and then to make that more congruent

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with the choices that are being made.

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So if people, for example, in many districts prefer

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to be represented based on their geographic identity

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as opposed to their partisan identity,

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then maybe the reforms should target institutions

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that aren't doing that or look at an institution like state

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courts and figure out why they're

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so effective at doing this.

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Uh, but again, this is kind of a path for future research,

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but also an opportunity for, kind of political reformers

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to get involved.

Redistricting: Balancing Boundaries and Political Goals

00:00:00 - Every 10 years in the United States, every state is required to redraw their congressional, districts. And theoretically, you could have infinite possibilities for how these districts are drawn. So with a, a state like Maine, for example, where there's only two districts, you only have to draw one line, but you could draw that one line infinitely cutting up the population of the state into two groups, based on anything. So in order to, actually complete this task, because there are so many possibilities, you have

00:00:38 - And so in reality, these criteria are usually, something like compactness or maintaining town or county political subdivision boundaries. It can be something else like partisan advantage, right? Helping Democrats or Republicans win. and so in reality, these criteria are almost always essentially, political goals, of the people who are in charge of drawing these maps. so in order to use one

00:01:09 - or county boundaries or, or partisan advantage, it requires people, it requires the people who are in charge of redistricting to conceive of the people who will be living in those districts by a specific group category, right? So with partisan advantage, you have to conceive of everybody living in that map as partisans, right? By their partisan identity. If it's, town or county, protection, then you're thinking of everybody

Conflicting Criteria in Redistricting

00:01:42 - And so, therefore we have these kind of different criteria. you're grouping constituents and voters based on these externally imposed group categories. and then this is where the, the kind of major wrinkle comes in that's critical for this, this research project, is that you can't choose all of the criteria, right? So some of these criteria are at the exclusion of other criteria.

00:02:11 - or conflicting criteria from the, from the title. So, because these criteria conflict with one another, you have to prioritize certain criteria at the exclusion of others. So, for example, if you prioritize compactness, maybe you aren't gonna be able to achieve goals of pars and advantage, or vice versa, right? So this paper really tries to put all these ideas together and show that when different institutions are in charge of the redistricting process, they correlate

00:02:41 - of other criteria. and the implications of this are that when you're favoring one category of group representation over the other, then you're doing, so, you're also favoring, one group of constituents, one identity for the constituents over another. So, for example, when you have a Democratic or Republican legislature, right, you are grouping people based on their party, group,

Bridging Gaps in Redistricting Research

00:03:12 - of, kind of scholarship. There's been a lot of re research on redistricting and representation. it makes sense. They go together. One, the purpose of redistricting is tied to representation. but none of that research really speaks to this question, or is kind of, most research on redistricting representation isn't kind of as broad as this project. So this project fills, a gap in the scholarship

00:03:46 - and, papers that people have done on specific criteria and specific groups. And then bringing in these more theoretical ideas about competing and conflicting criteria, from scholars like Bruce Kane, and kind of putting that all together in order to lead to these new conclusions, I wanted to take an approach that would be as comprehensive as possible. So I wanted to get as much data about as many of the redistricting institutions as I could, as well as,

00:04:16 - Many studies are kind of focused on, one set of criteria, something like compactness. How does compactness vary among these different institutions? what I was really interested in is when I look at all of the different institutions that are active, how do they compare on every single criteria, right? So, first I kind of considered all the different redistricting institutions that are active in redistricting that have the responsibility of actually drawing those maps.

Classification of Redistricting Institutions and Criteria

00:04:46 - and then I grouped those into subcategories of either partisan legislatures, Republican or democratic non-par or bipartisan legislatures, where they're split control, independent commissions, political commissions, and then state courts and federal courts. And then the second set of things, data that I needed was the redistricting criteria. and so I grouped those into four categories. There's partisan criteria, political criteria,

00:05:16 - And this is where I was able to bring in and kind of build on the work that a lot of other scholars did, in developing these different metrics for measuring things like, compactness or, partisan advantage, and bring in my own measurements for things like minority representation. And so your research distinguishes itself 'cause it's comprehensive, whereas they were just sort of se little tiny compartmentalized, Right? Exactly. my research was trying to be, it was trying

00:05:49 - to approximate the process of redistricting itself, where the redistricting institution has the opportunity to choose from infinite numbers of criteria, but they only choose some at the exclusion of others. So in order to do that, I needed a, a fairly comprehensive set of criteria. there's possibility for a more comprehensive set in the future, but I, I approached as comprehensive as I could with the data available. and I ended up collecting data

Analyzing Redistricting Data: Criteria Conflicts and Institutional Correlations

00:06:19 - So redistricting takes place after the census has taken place in years that ended zero and prior to, elections that, in years that ended two. So I collected data for 19 72, 19 82, 19 92, 2002, 2012, and 2022 for the analysis. What I did was, I used a bunch of, regression analyses to look at the correlations between redistricting institutions and these different criteria,

00:06:50 - of incorporating all the relevant control variables. But the idea was to identify where are there strong relationships between certain institutions and certain criteria. and what I ended up finding was that the redistricting criteria do conflict, right? You have each institution only correlates with a, with one or a small number of criteria, while there are kind of negative associations or no relationships, with many of the other criteria. So I'm able to kind of take those conclusions,

00:07:25 - about how these institutions may be, categorizing constituents and voters. For example, when a state court draws a redistricting map, they correlate highly with traditional criteria such as compactness. and this requires treating constituents based on their geographic identity at the exclusion of other criteria, which could mean treating them with bipartisan or, minority identity. Instead, there are some important distinctions

Differences in Redistricting Institutions and Their Impacts

00:07:57 - beyond just the, the criteria that they correlate with, right? So even though my findings show that there are differences in terms of the criteria that they're correlating with, there are also differences, major differences between the institutional design and purpose of a legislature or a court or a commission. so I, I think one of the things that really jumps out here is, state and federal courts kind of operate fundamentally differently in the redistricting

00:08:27 - So a, a commission may be designed explicitly for the creation of redistricting, right? The commission, their job, their sole purpose is congressional redistricting. a legislature has many different responsibilities, but they may be constitutionally, bound to do the redistricting process. State and federal courts will only get involved after those initial procedures fail, right? Something has to go wrong for the courts to get involved. And then other differences between these institutions are

00:09:00 - Legislators have to get reelected. federal judges are appointed for life. they have different incentives, and likely they have different goals. So the data from my paper shows that these institutions make different maps. They correlate with different criteria. and really this is, the kind of next step for future research is that this is ripe for, for causal inference, right? How do these insti, how do these constraints and incentives for the different institutions,

Redistricting: Elite Influence and Differing Judicial Approaches

00:09:33 - And maybe even also interestingly, are some of these criteria being chosen, accidentally or incidentally? And they are unaware of that, right? So they're, the kind of thinking about this in terms of partisan legislatures is pretty well known, right? Partisan, people who are associated with a party who have to run for reelection probably have partisan incentives. but for courts, for commissions, that's kind of ripe

00:10:04 - And also the, one of the things, one of the key findings from this paper is that federal and state courts are often grouped together in a lot of this research, and they're treated as if they're the same. and these findings show that state and federal courts are making different maps. They are likely valuing different, aspects of law when they are drawing these maps. The broader implications from this, from the study is, is, if we think about it in a really abstract sense, redistricting is sometimes it's called, you know,

00:10:36 - But I, I think we can think of it even more abstractly, that redistricting is essentially a process where political elites are grouping people, constituents and voters, the people, based on their own elite goals and criteria, right? So this has direct consequences for, which groups are represented and have political power, voting power in legislatures within specific districts, within states. but it also has major implications for democracy

Elites, Identity, and the Challenges of Fair Representation

00:11:08 - So simply put, if you have elites that are grouping people based on group identities that they don't agree with, right? If there's incongruence between the criteria that these institutions are using, and the identities that, people on the ground feel about themselves and they want to be represented, then this becomes major questions, kind of at the heart of representation, democracy, and political processes. In essence. One of the conclusions here is that there, there is no such thing as fair

00:11:41 - This is, this is kind of Bruce Kane's, conclusion in his work in the eighties and nineties. And this puts some empirical teeth behind that to show that there, there is no possibility for fair and neutral criteria. Every criteria, is at the exclusion of some other criteria. But I do think that this paper provides a lot of information for voters, constituents, activists, reformers, who want to look at kind of where are the holes in the redistricting process?

00:12:11 - And I think really the, the biggest possibility for reform here would be to look more closely at what do the people actually want, and then to make that more congruent with the choices that are being made. So if people, for example, in many districts prefer to be represented based on their geographic identity as opposed to their partisan identity, then maybe the reforms should target institutions that aren't doing that or look at an institution like state courts and figure out why they're