Gerrymandering
From the Commander’s Column for June
From the Commander’s Column for June
(Prattville Dragoons) - In the headlines recently are efforts to redraw congressional maps in multiple states across the country from California to the Carolinas. The April 2026 Supreme Court decision reversed decades of racially motivated gerrymandering following the Voting Rights Act passage in 1965. The SCOTUS ruling prohibited “unconstitutional racial gerrymandering, any use of race in legislative districting, only being justified to remedy specific, identified instances of past discrimination—and not simply to balance out partisan or racial demographics.” (https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-supreme-courts-callais-decision-sets-new-framework-for-racial-gerrymandering)
The term gerrymandering entered American lexicon around 1812 following efforts in Massachusetts by the Jeffersonian Republicans “brazenly contorting districts into odd shapes to maximize (their) party’s gain. Even though the Jeffersonian Republicans received (a minority) 49 percent of the vote, they won 29 of the 40 seats in the state Senate.” (https://www.history.com/articles/gerrymandering-origins-voting) Once the opposition Federalist party was in power, the districts were redrawn. During Reconstruction, former Confederates were unable to vote for approximately a decade and only until they swore allegiance to the Union, so black Republican candidates were installed by carpetbaggers and dominated elections for this period. Following this disenfranchisement and restoration of the Confederate veterans’ voting rights and gaining…