Looking at a map of where the Democrats are in the majority,\u00a0the fashionable conclusion is that their party is now a regional one, hugging the coasts. \u00a0In fact, they’re barely even that. \u00a0One-third of all Democratic Congressmen come from just three states – California, New York, and Massachusetts. \u00a0So when the party chose Chuck Schumer (NY) and Nancy Pelosi (CA) to lead it in the Senate and House, they were just being true to the current shrunken geography. \u00a0They may represent the party’s ideology, but there also just weren’t that many states to choose from.<\/p>\n

One state where leftists have been feeling the pinch is Wisconsin, home of the progressive movement. \u00a0Democrats have seen their share of the state legislature wither to 13 of 33 Senate seats, and 35 of 99 House seats.<\/p>\n

So off they went to court. \u00a0In the past, federal courts have generally struck down some forms of gerrymandering designed to dilute voting power based on race. \u00a0While the Supreme Court held open the idea that partisan gerrymandering, it had never found a practical yardstick that it approved of, and so the issue lay where it had lain since the beginning of the Republic.<\/p>\n

However, in 2016 The Year of the Unprecedented, Democrats\u00a0have managed to win an unprecedented victory. \u00a0A federal court has ordered the state’s legislative lines redrawn<\/a>. \u00a0The court thinks it has found a Judicial Sabrmetric measure that allows it to definitively state that partisan gerrymandering violates freedom of association. \u00a0The argument is roughly that votes in excess of what’s needed to win are “wasted” votes. \u00a0If the losing side has substantially more wasted votes than the winning side, then it will win disproportionately fewer seats than its vote total suggests that it “should” have.<\/p>\n

The logic of the argument escapes me. \u00a0Parties are voluntary associations, created for the purpose of attaining elected office. \u00a0(Or in the case of Libertarians, for debating certain ideas.) \u00a0Nobody is preventing anyone from freely associating, and there is no “right” for a party to be elected to any given office.<\/p>\n

Moreover, sometimes, a party simply becomes so weak in a jurisdiction that even with the best districting, there’s simply not way to guarantee it\u00a0any<\/em> seats. \u00a0For example, in Hawaii’s State Senate, there are currently 25 Democrats and zero Republicans. \u00a0None, nada, zilch. \u00a0 And yet Republican candidates surely received votes. \u00a0Should the state be required to draw a district in order to guarantee at least some Republican seats? \u00a0Of course not.<\/p>\n

But for the moment, at least in Wisconsin, the law is that Republicans aren’t allowed to win by too much. \u00a0So let’s look at some of the inputs and implications.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin’s Own History<\/strong><\/p>\n

The state has historically leaned left, but has never been as monolithically Democrat<\/a> as its reputation might have it. \u00a0Indeed, back in the 20s – 40s, the Democratic Party there was all but extinct. \u00a0As late as 1948, Republicans controlled 27 of 33 State Senate seats, and 92(!) of 100 House seats.<\/p>\n

The pendulum started to swing back, and the 1958 elections proved to be a watershed. \u00a0Republicans went from a supermajority in the House to a minority, and virtually all of the statewide offices went to Democrats. \u00a0Note that this happened with the same districts that, in 1956, had give Republicans 2\/3 of the State House. \u00a0<\/em>The party reached its high-water mark in the early 80s, with supermajorities in both the State House and State Senate, but since then – 35 years ago – the state has been swinging back to Republicans.<\/p>\n

Naturally, the Democrats blame this weakness on redistricting and gerrymandering, rather than natural party swings and their own misreading of the state’s politics. \u00a0Such gerrymandering doesn’t explain Scott Walker winning three statewide elections, a conservative winning a state Supreme Court election, or the election and re-election of Sen. Ron Johnson, but then Democrats have never been one to let logic interfere with a good power-grab.<\/p>\n

Gerrymandering is Self-Limiting<\/strong><\/p>\n

There’s a vast literature on drawing legislative districts, but ultimately, a party with control of the process is confronted with two choices – it can either pack its opponents into a few districts, or spread them out.<\/p>\n

By packing them in, the majority party is seeking to limit the number of competitive districts, and ensure a smaller, but more durable majority. \u00a0Many districts will be uncompetitive, a few will be swing districts. \u00a0If the majority is small enough, then it might lose control in a bad year, but will retain control in most years.<\/p>\n

By spreading them out, the majority party will be in front in more districts, but those majorities will be smaller. \u00a0So in a normal year, they’ll have broader control of the legislature, possibly a supermajority, but they risk losing many districts in a wave year. \u00a0That’s what happened to Republicans in the 1958 Wisconsin elections.<\/p>\n

Parties who are clinging to small majorities may\u00a0find that there just aren’t enough districts to go around to try the first option, so they choose the second, writing themselves small majorities in many districts, and counting on the power of incumbency to see them through.<\/p>\n

The Democrats have done poorly in the 2014 and 2016 legislative elections in Wisconsin, and their argument is predicated on the idea that they’ll never be able to claw their way back to competitiveness. \u00a0But while gerrymandering helps, it can’t overcome long-term secular trends.<\/p>\n

For decades, nay generations, Democrats gerrymandered districts to their advantage. \u00a0In response, Republicans began a\u00a0long-term, multi-decade effort to squeeze the Democrats from the bottom-up. \u00a0Their in state legislatures are the result of that.\u00a0 \u00a0The change from 1980 is stunning, and began in earnest in 1994:<\/p>\n