Gerrymandering Causes Partisan Polarization: A Need for a New Policy

Abstract

Federalism and the Constitution exist today because of the division of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, especially during the redistricting process of gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the drawing of boundaries during legislative redistricting, approved by legislation every decade, and is designed not to interfere with discrimination protected under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The purpose of this literature review is to examine and evaluate the research question, does gerrymandering cause partisan polarization? This research study is divided into five sections: 1) An introduction to the topic of gerrymandering’s history and process; 2) Who draws the redistricting lines which become another independent variable (IV) in this study; 3) Methodologies that become the dependent variables (DVs); 4) Studies that support the IVs and DVs; and 5) A summary of research results that provide empirical evidence that gerrymandering causes political partisan polarization with a suggested resolution or hypothesis being: voting boundaries redrawn from the gerrymandering process by independent agencies or commissions reduce partisan polarization by political officials in the legislature to reduce bias.