Political Gerrymandering and the Courts

I am indebted to Columbia University Press for permission to reprint excerpts from Peter H. Schuck, "The Thickest Thicket: Partisan Political Gerrymandering and Judicial Regulation of Politics." Copyright 1987 by the Directors of the Columbia Law Review Association, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article originally appeared as 87 Columbia Law Rev. 1325.

This volume could not have been completed without the able assistance of Dorothy Gormick, Michelle Tran, Susan Pursche, and Wilma Laws of the School of Social Sciences, UCI. I have benefited greatly from discussions of redistricting case law and litigation strategy with the many attorneys with whom I have worked as an expert witness. I am also indebted to a number of organizations involved with redistricting issues and related topics for access to information and resources that have facilitated the publication of this volume. These include (in alphabetical order): the American Legislative Exchange Council, Common Cause, Election Data Services, Fairness for the 90s/Lawyers for the Republic, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law, Logistic Systems, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Republican National Committee, the Southern Regional Council, the Southwest Voter Research Institute, and the Voting Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. My own research for this volume has been supported by grants from the Political Science and Law and Social Science Programs of the National Science Foundation, SES 85-15468 and SES 88-09392. However, none of these organizations is in any way responsible for the contents of this volume, which reflects solely the individual views of its contributors as scholars and citizens.

-ix-