Stigler and Redistricting

In 2010, there were predictions that the Republicans would win majorities in both the House and the Senate, as well as gain the power to redraw district maps. Based on the 2010 census, each state’s Legislature would draw new boundaries for the districts within the state. Redistricting is so influential that it “could determine whether Republicans or Democrats dominate a state’s congressional delegation for an entire decade.” Because the Legislature is in charge of redistricting in most states, gerrymandering can be a huge problem.

According to Stigler, representatives cast their vote based on the economic interests of the constituents in their district. The newspaper article puts a lot of emphasis on how redistricting would help or hurt one of the parties. However, Stigler’s argument seems to make the parties’ preferences not as important relative to the interests of the constituents themselves. Redistricting could therefore have a huge effect when, for example, more farmers are in the same district after the new boundaries, because then the representative will probably have to vote for what the farmers want. Redistricting could also not have a huge effect even if the representative is now Republican instead of Democratic because they still have to vote according to the economic interests of their constituents, and not their own ideological interests.

Therefore, if the principal-agent problem is at a minimum in Congress, redistricting should not affect the parties so much as either help or hurt the politically active groups of people by being made smaller or bigger.