Seabrook’s excellent and cogent account of election boundary manipulation proves that political power knows few bounds and explains gerrymandering’s history and effects and ways to combat it...Seabrook finds similar manipulations in England’s rotten boroughs and describes how the Founding Fathers themselves were not averse to some boundary manipulation...Seabrook concludes that power lies with the people and explains how some states, led by California, are creating independent election district commissions to defeat political machinations...A timely and powerful book that should be read by everyone interested in preserving American democracy.
We learn in fascinating and depressing detail from Nick Seabrook’s wide-ranging history, One Person, One Vote, when politicians intentionally draw boundaries for partisan advantage, politicians pick their voters rather than voters picking politicians...Those who benefit from gerrymandering are determined not to lose their advantage...Even the Supreme Court has failed to address the harms of the practice...On three separate occasions, challenges to the most pervasive partisan gerrymanders of the 21st century have come before the Supreme Court, but reformers came away disappointed. Instead, change has almost always come from concerned citizens who convinced elected officials to take on the issue...Seabrook’s important book should be of interest to every citizen who wants to better understand what goes on behind the scenes as political parties seek power.
One Person, One Vote argues that many of America's problems stem from one eternally timely issue...Gerrymandering involves the redrawing of congressional, state and local districts for political gain...It's done by both sides and has often been used to sideline minority representation, especially in the aftermath of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that removed obstacles that had long prevented Black people from voting in the South...Seabrook's title refers to a series of 1960s Supreme Court decisions that required every district to contain roughly the same number of people...But it's also an ironic title because the increasingly sophisticated process works around that requirement, stretching and squeezing districts to predetermine outcomes and making votes count for less and less...Seabrook makes clear that practical solutions exist but achievable ones are in short supply.
Seabrook has written One Person, One Vote: A Surprising History of Gerrymandering in America chiefly to contend that Democrats in the 2020s are losing elections they would win if it weren’t for Republicans’ skill at electoral topiary. He doesn’t put it as directly as that. He insists that the effort to curb gerrymandering is a matter of 'democratic best practices' and 'good government reform that protects the interests of all citizens.' And he acknowledges that Democrats gerrymander their opponents, too, or at least that they used to do it more effectively than they do now ... But Mr. Seabrook is clearly a man of the left—Republicans who gerrymander do so for nefarious purposes, Democrats do so in the service of 'securing justice' for 'marginalized communities' and the like—and the book’s overarching argument fits rather snugly with the left’s post-2016 fixation on gerrymandering.
Seabrook traces the history of gerrymandering beyond its supposedly American origins to the English tradition of 'rotten boroughs,' dating to the 13th century, with small numbers of voters attaining electoral power out of proportion to their numbers and members of Parliament propped up by corrupt measures...As Seabrook notes, the 19th century was the heyday of gerrymandering as practiced by nearly every party, so that in one Ohio election, as a contemporary observed, if the Whigs won the state by 10,000 votes, they would still earn only seven congressional representatives while their opponents would have twice as many with the same count...In a concluding call to action, the author writes: 'How much do you really know about redistricting in your state? If the answer is not much, well, that’s what the career politicians already huddling behind the scenes with teams of redistricting professionals, attorneys, political scientists, and strategists are hoping for. Democracy dies in darkness'...Valuable reading for voting rights activists.
Political scientist Seabrook delivers a sweeping study of gerrymandering, the process of manipulating the boundaries of political districts to ensure an election’s outcome...Seabrook shows that the 'partisan manipulation' of electoral maps began well before the 1830s, when a salamander-shaped district drawn by Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry’s Democratic-Republican Party was nicknamed the 'Gerrymander'...As a remedy, Seabrook urges readers to pressure their state legislatures to establish independent commissions and other nonpartisan redistricting procedures...Dense yet entertaining, this comprehensive survey is a worthy introduction to a high-stakes political issue.
