Elbridge Gerry's salamander: the electoral consequences of the reapportionment revolution

The Supreme Court's reapportionment decisions, beginning with Baker v.

Carr in 1962, had far more than jurisprudential consequences.

They sparked a massive wave of extraordinary redistricting in the mid-1960s.

Both state legislative and congressional districts were redrawn more comprehensively - by far - than at any previous time in America's history.

Moreover, they changed what would happen at law should a state government fail to enact a new districting plan when one was legally required.

This 2002 book provides a detailed analysis of how judicial partisanship affected redistricting outcomes in the 1960s, arguing that the reapportionment revolution led indirectly to three fundamental changes in the nature of congressional elections: the abrupt eradication of a 6% pro-Republican bias in the translation of congressional votes into seats outside the south; the abrupt increase in the apparent advantage of incumbents; and the abrupt alteration of the two parties' success in congressional recruitment and elections.