lpetrich
Contributor
Although Congressional districts have often been gerrymandered, it seems much more difficult to gerrymander the states. It's much harder to move their boundaries around. Referring to The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription | National Archives
That seems to make gerrymandering the states very close to impossible. But does it? States can be gerrymandered when they are created, when the Constitution's strictures on state rearrangement do not apply.
When Adding New States Helped the Republicans - The Atlantic
In other words, to rearrange states' territory, one needs the consent of the US Congress and every state whose territory will be rearrangement.New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
That seems to make gerrymandering the states very close to impossible. But does it? States can be gerrymandered when they are created, when the Constitution's strictures on state rearrangement do not apply.
When Adding New States Helped the Republicans - The Atlantic
North Dakota and South Dakota? The Dakota Territory was split into those two states to give the Republican Party some additional Senators.Putting new stars on the U.S. flag has always been political. But D.C. statehood is a modest partisan ploy compared with the mass admission of underpopulated western territories—which boosts the GOP even 130 years later.
The number of states in the union has been fixed at 50 for so long, few Americans realize that throughout most of our history, the addition of new states from time to time was a normal part of political life. New states were supposed to join the union when they reached a certain population, but in the late 19th century, population mattered a great deal less than partisanship. While McConnell is right to suspect that admitting Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia now would shift the balance in Congress toward the Democrats, the Republican Party has historically taken far more effective advantage of the addition of new states.
In 1889 and 1890, Congress added North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming—the largest admission of states since the original 13. This addition of 12 new senators and 18 new electors to the Electoral College was a deliberate strategy of late-19th-century Republicans to stay in power after their swing toward Big Business cost them a popular majority. The strategy paid dividends deep into the future; indeed, the admission of so many rural states back then helps to explain GOP control of the Senate today, 130 years later.
Republicans did not hide their intentions. In the popular Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, President Harrison’s son crowed that the Republicans would win all the new states and gain eight more senators, while the states’ new electors meant that Cleveland’s New York would no longer dominate the Electoral College. When the Republicans’ popularity continued to fall nationally, in 1890 Congress added Wyoming and Idaho—whose populations in 1880 were fewer than 21,000 and 33,000 respectively—organizing them so quickly that they bypassed normal procedures and permitted volunteers instead of elected delegates to write Idaho’s constitution.