Success Changes Nothing: The 2006 Election Results and the Undiminished Need for a Progressive Response to Political Gerrymandering
BY RONALD A. KLAIN
In the spring of 2006, with the midterm elections just a few months away, the conventional wisdom was that extensive partisan gerrymandering made a change in control in the U.S. House of Representatives unlikely, if not impossible.1 In June, when the Supreme Court refused to strike down one of the nation’s most notorious gerrymanders—the Texas map masterminded by House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Delay—any remaining hope that enough congressional races would be competitive in 2006 to change the balance of power in the House seemed all but extinguished. A growing frustration with this legal and political reality led many progressive political ªgures and academics to take up the cause of redistricting reform as the best course to create competitive elections and preserve electoral accountability.
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