Redistricting: Case Law and Consequences Reapportionment and Party Realignment in the American States

Malapportionment of state legislatures before the mid-1960s gave urban and suburban voters much less representation than they deserved. This Essay documents that suburban and urban voters had markedly different policy preferences, party identifications, and partisan voting behaviors than voters in rural areas, who were overrepresented. However, the patterns were not uniform. In the Northeast and North Central, the suburban and urban underrepresented areas were much more Democratic than rural areas. In the South and West, the rural voters leaned more Democratic than the urban and suburban voters. Policy preferences split differently in the Northeast and North Central than they did in the South and West. Urban and suburban voters were much more liberal on social welfare and economic policy than rural voters in these areas. In the South and West, few differences existed across locales. On only one issue did the urban and suburban areas have more liberal attitudes throughout the nation: racial politics. Courtordered reapportionment thus increased the political weight of liberals and Democrats in the Northeast and North Central, but not in the South and West. Reapportionment moved the median voter in all regions to the left on issues of civil rights and racial policy.