Nolan Matthew McCarty Quotes

Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders).

These districts at the federal and state level that are gerrymandered tend to produce a lot of extremism.

Political gerrymanders existed in colonial times and continued through the framing. The Framers provided a remedy for the problem: the Constitution gives state legislatures the initial power to draw federal election districts, but authorizes Congress to “make or alter” those districts

Redistricting is the nastiest form of politics that there is.

What's historically been referred to as 'gerrymandering' can more aptly be labeled an incumbent protection program.

American voting districts are, across a lot of the country, deeply messed up by having been gerrymandered by right-wing politicians.

My tentative plan is to gerrymander all of those crazy libs right out of the section and replace them with right-thinking Americans..

…by gerrymandering the State, seven hundred Democratic votes were equal to one thousand Republican votes.

If legislators are allowed to continuously redistrict throughout the decade, you are going to have no way of using elections to remove unpopular officeholders because the lines will be redrawn to ensure their reelection.

It has become a cliché that voters no longer choose their legislators. The legislators choose their voters.

Every individual who participated in the redistricting process knew that incumbency protection was a critical factor in producing the bizarre lines.... Many of the oddest twists and turns of the Texas districts would never have been created if the Legislature had not been so intent on protecting party and incumbents

Properly done gerrymandering will increase the weight of some votes and nullify the effect of others, in order to ensure with near certainty that elections will yield the outcome desired by the incumbents.

We cannot always count on a severely gerrymandered legislature itself to find and implement a remedy [to gerrymandering.]

The task of redistricting is best left to state legislatures, elected by the people and as capable as the courts, if not more so, in balancing the myriad factors and traditions in legitimate districting policies. The task of redistricting is best left to state legislatures, elected by the people and as capable as the courts, if not more so, in balancing the myriad factors and traditions in legitimate districting policies.

[When redistricting] there is no such thing as non-partisan…. Beware of non-partisan, or bi-partisan staff bearing gifts. They probably are not your friends.

In Maryland, we have the unfortunate distinction of being the most gerrymandered state in the entire nation.

In democracy, as quaintly understood, voters pick their representatives. American democracy increasingly reverses that. Legislative districts are drawn to protect incumbents who, effectively, pick their voters.

Political gerrymandering makes the incentive for most members of Congress to play to the extremes of their base rather than to the center.

The Republicans in the House and Senate took the district that I firmly represent, 22 in south Florida, from a D plus one to a D plus five almost a D plus six district, which means you are given a five to six percent registration advantage to Democrats. They drew in more Democrats into the district I represent.

Redistricting has always taken place behind closed doors, with zero public input

... elections are no longer representative.

Redistricting makes the inequities in campaign financing even worse. Most elections are so noncompetitive due to how the lines are drawn that big donors already know who's going to win. So they give to the likely winners to curry favor.

First they gerrymander us into one-party fiefs. Then they tell us they only care about the swing districts. Then they complain about voter apathy

We have to end political gerrymandering in this country. We have to end it.

Bullies have played a dirty trick to force me out of office by re-drawing my Congressional district to cover a largely rural area of north Florida and include 22 prisons, and convicted felons can't vote.