"Public Choice Principles of Redistricting"
BY: JOHN G. MATSUSAKA
USC Marshall School of Business
USC School of Law
THOMAS W. GILLIGAN
University of Southern California
Marshall School of Business
Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:
http://papers.ssrn.com/paper
Paper ID: USC Law and Economics Research Paper No. 05-18; USC
CLEO Research Paper No. C05-8
Date: July 2005
Contact: JOHN G. MATSUSAKA
Email: Mailto:matsusak@usc.edu
Postal: USC Marshall School of Business
Dept. of Finance & Business Economics
Los Angeles, CA 90089 UNITED STATES
Phone: 213-740-6495
Fax: 213-740-6650
Co-Auth: THOMAS W. GILLIGAN
Email: Mailto:TGILLIGAN@MARSHALL.USC.EDU
Postal: University of Southern California
Marshall School of Business
Los Angeles, CA 90089 UNITED STATES
ABSTRACT:
This paper uses fundamental principles of public choice, mainly the median voter theorem, to develop a simple theory of redistricting. The focus is on how closely policy outcomes correspond to majority rule. The main results are: (1) Potential policy bias in favor of nonmajority groups is structurally linked to the number of legislative seats and the population, and the structure of most states puts them very close to the theoretically maximum bias. (2) Random districting, which might seem like the essence of neutrality, does not eliminate policy bias on average. (3) Traditional principles of compact, contiguous districts that respect existing political boundaries, stressed in the Supreme Court's Shaw v. Reno decision, minimize
the chance of nonmajoritarian outcomes."
