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Gerrymandering is in the news this week because the Texas legislature is redistricting the state’s Congressional regions to reflect the thousands of new residents who have recently moved to the Lone Star state from California and other states. The new Texas map will favor the Republican party through five new house seats. Instead of voting, 57 Democratic state representatives fled to Chicago and other locations in protest.
Redistricting to favor a political party—called gerrymandering—first appeared in newspapers after the 1812 election. That year Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a redistricting measure that favored his party, the Democrat-Republicans instead of the dying Federalist party.
By the first of the year in 1813, an anonymous editorial correctly predicted the term's future and Gerry’s legacy.
“Gerrymandering -- in all probability Mr. Gerry’s name will be immortalized by this word. In every part of the United States it has become familiar and will ever be used as excessive,” The New England Palladium published on January 5, 1813.
The name could have been more difficult to say. Thank goodness they didn’t call it Elbridging.
“When he (Governor Gerry) approved a controversial redistricting plan that gave Democratic-Republicans an advantage in state elections, the Federalist press noted that the districts were shaped like salamanders and dubbed the plan the Gerrymander,” explained a researcher for the Miller Center, a presidential scholarship hub at the University of Virginia.
The name gerrymandering stuck, and the practice has continued by both political parties ever since.
“Still today, creating an irregularly shaped district to favor one political party is known as Gerrymandering,” the Miller Center reports.
In fairness, Elbridge Gerry’s legacy is worthy of respect and honor beyond a name that rhymes with an amphibian. I have come across his name through his correspondence with his friend, John Adams.
“I am under such restrictions, injunctions and engagements of secrecy respecting everything which passes in Congress, that I cannot communicate my own thoughts freely to my friends,” Adams wrote to Gerry in November 1775. Despite these restrictions, Adams asked Gerry, who served in the new Massachusetts legislature, for his advice on arming private New England ships to protect the colonies.
Gerry eagerly responded, enchanting Adams with stories of 10-ton New England ships called spider catchers who caught British supply vessels carrying potatoes and cattle.
Their correspondence dropped off when Gerry joined Adams as a member of the Continental Congress in 1776 and they spoke in person instead of writing letters. Like Adams, Gerry voted for and signed the Declaration of Independence.
Years later in 1789 when Adams became the first vice president of the United States, Gerry was elected to the first Congress under the U.S. Constitution. After serving as governor of Massachusetts from 1810-11, he caught the attention of President James Madison, who tapped him as vice president in 1812 after Vice President George Clinton died in office. Gerry also died while serving as Madison’s second vice president.
While Gerry’s name is forever connected with gerrymandering, his contributions are worthy of notice, especially as America reaches its 250th milestone.
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