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Map of Texas's congressional districts.

How Redistricting Turned a Setback Into a Bloodbath

The 1894 election cycle holds some key lessons for partisan gerrymanders today.
by Alan Greenblatt via Politico Magazine on November 10, 2025
Political cartoon depicting a gerrymandered district in 1812 Massachusetts as a monster.

Gerrymandering

The notion that democratic elections should allow voters to make a real choice between candidates sits uneasily with untrammeled redistricting power.
by Aziz Huq via London Review of Books on October 23, 2025
Protests at a Los Angeles City Council Meeting

L.A. Backstory: The History Behind the City Council’s Racist Tirades

Where did the behind-closed-doors racist garbage from some leading Los Angeles elected officials come from?
by Harold Meyerson via The American Prospect on October 13, 2022
illustration of a hand with a shredded ballot

John Roberts’s Long Game

Is this the end of the Voting Rights Act?
by Linda Greenhouse via The Atlantic on September 20, 2022
Black and white photograph of Harold Washington, 1980s.

A 1980s Blueprint on How to Be a Leader

A new film shows how Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, stood up to a majority-white city council to push through infrastructure improvements for all.
by Brentin Mock via CityLab on January 3, 2022
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Gerrymandering's Surprising History and Uncertain Future

Both parties play the redistricting game, redrawing electoral boundaries to lock down power.
via Retro Report on October 18, 2021

Where Did the Term 'Gerrymander' Come From?

Elbridge Gerry was a powerful voice in the founding of the nation, but today he's best known for the political practice with an amphibious origin.
by Erick Trickey via Smithsonian Magazine on July 20, 2017

The New Racism

A glimpse inside the Alabama State House suggests that the civil rights movement may have reached its end.
by Jason Zengerle via The New Republic on August 10, 2014

Re-mapping American Politics

The redistricting revolution, fifty years later.
by David Stebenne via Origins on February 5, 2012
“The Gerry-Mander.” Although not the first version of Elkanah Tisdale’s famous cartoon, this one notably includes all the towns of Essex County. Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Gerry-Mander_Edit.png#/media/File:The_Gerry-Mander.png.

The Original Gerrymanders

The history of gerrymandering suggests that the current redistricting race for short-term partisan gain indicates a period of political instability on the way.
by Kevin Vrevich via Panorama on August 1, 2025
John Roberts, Lewis F. Powell Jr., and a statue of Lady Justice between them.

There’s a New Lewis Powell Memo, and It’s Wildly Racist

One young conservative lawyer would lead a determined fight to maintain Lewis Powell’s blindfolded race neutrality.
by David Daley via Slate on August 6, 2024
1957 U.S. Supreme Court Justices
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Super Chief

Reconsidering Earl Warren's place in U.S. history.
by Michael Bobelian via HNN on May 14, 2024
Above view of residential areas in Richmond, Virginia.

How the Former Confederate Capital Slashed Black Voting Power, Overnight

Did Richmond violate the Voting Rights Act by adding thousands of White residents? The historic Supreme Court case foreshadowed today’s gerrymandering fights.
by Leila Barghouty via Retropolis on July 9, 2023
Portraits of white men.

How 155 Angry White Men Chained Alabama to Its Confederate Past

Their plan required not only a social and legal division along racial lines but a political one, too — a separation that persists today.
by Kyle Whitmire via al.com on December 5, 2022
Brooklyn Bridge with the city skyline in the background.

When Panama Came to Brooklyn

“For those Afro-Caribbean Panamanian who had lived through Panama’s Canal Zone apartheid, Brooklyn segregation probably came as no surprise.”
by Kaysha Corinealdi via Public Books on November 30, 2022
Graphic design of a red, fractured United States on a yellow background

There Is Absolutely Nothing to Support the ‘Independent State Legislature’ Theory

Such a doctrine would be antithetical to the Framers’ intent, and to the text, fundamental design, and architecture of the Constitution.
by J. Michael Luttig via The Atlantic on October 3, 2022
Drawing of a voting booth on top of a gerrymandered district with a saw cutting the floor out from under it.

American Democracy Was Never Designed to Be Democratic

The partisan redistricting tactics of cracking and packing aren’t merely flaws in the system—they are the system.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on August 15, 2022
Census taker's bag from 1980

Immigration Hard-Liner Files Reveal 40-Year Bid Behind Trump's Census Obsession

The Trump administration tried and failed to accomplish a count of unauthorized immigrants to reshape Congress, the Electoral College and public policy.
by Hansi Lo Wang via NPR on February 15, 2021

Fighting to Vote

Voting rights are often associated with the Civil Rights Movement, but this fight extends throughout American history.
by Michael Tomasky via New York Review of Books on October 22, 2018

The Data Proves That School Segregation Is Getting Worse

This is ultimately a disagreement over how we talk about school segregation.
by Alvin Chang via Vox on March 5, 2018

History Frowns on Partisan Gerrymandering

On the eve of a major redistricting case at the Supreme Court, a look back at what the nation's founders would have thought.
by Michael Waldman, Cliff Sloan via Washington Post on October 1, 2017

Ahead of a Major Supreme Court Case on Gerrymandering, Here Are the Term's Origins

The word is two centuries old.
by Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on June 19, 2017
Collage of John Roberts, Ronald Reagan, and a voting booth.

John Roberts’s Dream Is Finally Coming True

The chief justice has been working to neuter the Voting Rights Act since the beginning of his career.
by David Daley via The Atlantic on December 10, 2025
Illustration showing Black education, skilled work, and military service, as results of the 15th amendment.
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The Fifteenth Amendment: Annotated

The brevity of the Fifteenth Amendment of the US Constitution belies its impact on American voting rights.
by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on October 24, 2025
Ben Davis Jr. leaving courthouse, surrounded by crowd carrying signs bearing various slogans.

In 1930s NYC, Proportional Representation Boosted the Left

NYC history suggests that the Left might profitably revive proportional representation as a tool to build its electoral strength.
by Trevor Goodwin via Jacobin on January 26, 2025
Regina King as Shirley Chisholm in "Shirley," a new film.

The True History Behind Netflix's 'Shirley' Movie

A new film dramatizes Shirley Chisholm's history-making bid to become the first Black woman president in 1972.
by Ellen Wexler via Smithsonian Magazine on March 22, 2024
Scale, with pile of U.S. states weighing down one end, and the U.S. on the other.

How a Fringe Legal Theory Became a Threat to Democracy

Lawyers tried to use the independent-state-legislature theory to sway the outcomes of the 2000 and 2020 elections. What if it were to become the law of the land?
by Andrew Marantz via The New Yorker on June 5, 2023
Voter registration at the Brookfield Conference Center in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield on Nov. 8.
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Suburbs Have Moved Leftward — Except Around Milwaukee

A far right politics that developed in the middle of the 20th century has prevented Democrats from gaining as they have in suburbs elsewhere.
by Ian Toller-Clark via Made By History on April 14, 2023
Supporters cheer during an election night watch party for Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) in Atlanta
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Warnock’s Win Points to the Need For Ongoing Political Organizing

Georgia’s own history highlights what out-organizing voter suppression really entails.
by Dan Berger via Made By History on December 7, 2022
Civil rights era photo of young people protesting for voting rights in between black and white photos of black people lined up to vote

American Democracy Is Only 55 Years Old—And Hanging by a Thread

Black civil-rights activists—and especially Black women—delivered on the promise of the Founding. Their victories are in peril.
by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on February 11, 2021
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