The Most Exciting Attack On Partisan Gerrymandering In Over A Decade

[elljay]

7. My hometown was gerrymandered back in the 60s

I grew up on the South Shore of Long Island. We had a very progressive Congressman Allard Lowenstein from 1968-70.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allard_K._Lowenstein

The NY state legislature gerrymandered the district to remove a number of Democratic towns and to add a predominantly Republican town. As a result, we had more than 20 years of Republican representatives until the districts were eventually adjusted. The gerrymandered district didn't look particularly unusual. However, if you dig deeper, you would find that there was a religious minority component to the redistricting, similar to the tactics Republicans are using today with racial minorities. Several heavily Jewish towns (Democratic) were removed and a Catholic town (Republican) was added to dilute the Jewish vote. I'm glad someone is now using some more sophisticated analysis to identify the more insidious examples of gerrymandering!