In many US states, the political party in power can change district maps in a way that benefits them during elections – a technique known as gerrymandering. In new research, Aaron R. Kaufman and co-authors find that not only do politicians gerrymander to gain more voters, but they also deliberately change electoral boundaries to include corporate headquarters within their districts. He writes that such “firm gerrymandering” may lead both the Republican and Democratic parties to act in more pro-business ways at the expense of labor-oriented voters.

Redistricting, the process of redrawing legislative boundaries, is often seen as a way for politicians to manipulate how voters are distributed to their advantage. But during the long and secretive process of drawing these borders, politicians take the opportunity to include whatever they want in their districts. Some of these things give them a distinct political advantage – universities, military bases, and economic infrastructure like ports – but others are more personal. For example, some politicians insist on including their child’s school in their district, or their local grocery store. Once, two politicians fought over who would represent a favorite music venue.

The benefits of firm gerrymandering to politicians

Our analysis focuses on whether politicians use this process to strategically place corporate headquarters within their districts. We call this “firm gerrymandering”. For politicians, having firms in their district can provide them with campaign financing, valuable information about their constituents’ needs, opportunities for credit claiming, paths to power via committee assignments, and connections to voters. Likewise, firms can benefit from having a representative who is more likely to advocate for their interests.

In new research, we analyze 14 US states that took part in the 2010 redistricting process using a method of redistricting simulations. We use computational methods to draw tens of thousands of possible districts, and then compare those districts to the real ones. Since our simulation methods don’t have any political bias, the real maps will often be very extreme compared to the simulated maps. For example, in Pennsylvania, the real Republican-drawn map gives more seats and more firms to Republicans than almost any of the 50,000 simulated maps we drew.

In Figure 1 below, each bar is a possible combination of seats and firms that the Democrats might win. A dark-colored bar indicates that many of our simulated plans give Democrats that combination of seats and firms. The red circle, located at four seats and 110 firms, shows that only a few simulated plans are as extreme as the enacted plan: it is closer to the bottom and further to the left. However, this enacted plan was challenged in court, and the court ruled that the plan must be redrawn. The revised plan, shown as a red X, is much closer to the average of the simulations.

Figure 1 – Pennsylvania’s simulated distribution of firms and seats

Figure 2 below shows the proportion of total firms that the Democratic Party receives in each of the 14 states, as per our simulations. The dashed vertical line indicates the proportion they receive in the real plan. If the Republicans are drawing the lines, we would expect the Democrats to get fewer firms than the simulations would suggest, meaning the dashed line will be on the left side of the histogram. Likewise, if the Democrats are drawing the lines, that dashed line should be on the right side of the graph, and if the plan is drawn by an independent body, the line will be close to the middle.

Figure 2 – Simulated distributions of the fraction of firms assigned to Democratic districts by state

Political bias in firms’ locations

In general, we find that in states where one party controlled the redistricting process, firms were disproportionately allocated to districts controlled by that party. However, in states like Arizona where independent redistricting commissions drew the lines, we don’t see this political bias. This was true even in states where the party in control did not maximize their seats: in Texas (shown in Figure 3 below), the Republican majority gave Democrats more seats than they needed to – the red circle indicating the enacted plan is higher up than most plans – but in exchange, gave them far fewer firms. While there are many plans overall that give Democrats fewer firms than the enacted plan, there are very few plans that give Democrats fewer firms fixing the number of seats at 11. We call this conditional firm gerrymandering, and it tells us that firm gerrymandering is not just a by-product of traditional gerrymandering.

“Headquarters” (CC BY-NC 2.0) by Thomas Hawk

Figure 3 – Texas’ simulated distribution of firms and seats

However, firm gerrymandering is not without its constraints. For instance, not all firms are equally desirable to politicians. Some firms may be more valuable due to their size, the sector they operate in, their popularity, or their willingness to donate to their representative’s campaign. Similarly, some firms may be toxic for a representative in a district, something pointed out by our interviews with political consultants involved in redistricting. For example, a pro-union candidate may not be interested in anti-union firms, or a candidate with a strong position on environmental issues may not want to represent an oil company.

Future research could explore other potential targets of gerrymandering, such as wealthy individuals, donors, universities, military bases, ports, airports, stadiums, national parks, and hospitals.

Finally, we think that firm gerrymandering holds important implications for the quality of democratic representation. It may lead both parties to act in more pro-business ways at the expense of labor-oriented voters. Voters who support the minority party that are located near firms the majority party has captured may not have a member of Congress advocating for them. This highlights the need for further research into the broader impacts of firm gerrymandering on democratic institutions and representation.

• This article is based on the paper, ‘Are Firms Gerrymandered?’, in American Political Science Review. 
• Please read our comments policy before commenting. 
• Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics.  
• Shortened URL for this post: https://wp.me/p3I2YF-ebn