Latest Issue

TheAmerican | In Italia

Published April 29, 2014

Gerrymandering can reinvent whole areas to suit purely political interests.

In 1880, Captain Charles Boycott, the agent of an absentee landlord, attempted to evict 11 Irish tenant farmers from their lands for protesting high rents during a year of poor harvests. Boycott sent in his own "scab" harvesters, raising the ire of the evicted and the risk of serious violence. Speaking to protesting farmers, nationalist leader Charles Stuart Parnell appealed for cooler heads, proposing that the scabs simply be shunned. The community focused instead on Boycott. His farm hands stopped working for him and businessmen ceased all trade. He was isolated and ultimately ostracized.

Boycotts have a history of bringing about change. Boycotts against South Africa (for its practice of apartheid), the MontgomeryBus Boycott, and consumer boycotts of the East India Company (the Boston Tea Party), Wal-Mart and Ford are all cases in point. So was the political "Boycott Bush" campaign set up by Ethical Consumer after President George W. Bush failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The campaign went after Bush's corporate backers and the products they produce.

Which raises the idea of a "Boycott of Gerrymanders."

In 1812, Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry approved a congressional redistricting law that favored his political party, the Democratic-Republican. The law created a new voting district that Federalist newspapers likened to a salamander. "Gerrymandering," or self-serving redistricting, became his political legacy.

North Carolina 12 is a leading offender.

Stacking the political deck in favor of incumbents and party loyalists — a problem that has persisted over centuries