Re: Judge throws out Florida's congressional map
Surely you are joking? The ones that are most into gerrymandering are the right-wing conservatives who can't win a race unless they draw wacky boundaries.
Gerrymandering is done by both parties. The reason it seems that today the republicans do it more is because they have more governors than the democrats and control both chambers of the state legislatures more than the Democrats. Actually since 1930 only 4 times has a party received more congressional votes than the other party and not controlled the House.
There are 24 states that have a Republican Governor and both chambers of the state legislature
13 states that have a Democratic Governor and both chambers of the state legislature
4 states have a Democratic Governor and a Republican controlled legislature
4 states have a Republican Governor and a Democratic controlled legislature
1 state has a Republican Governor and a split state legislature
4 states have a Democratic Governor and a split state legislature.
So only those state with the governor and both chambers of the state legislature in the same parties hands are able to gerrymander.
4 times since 1930, each party was able to maintain control of the House twice even though they received the lesser amount of the total congressional vote.
In 1930 the Republicans won 52.8% of the congressional vote to the Democrats 44.5%, yet the Democrats won the House by the slimmest of margins 218-217
In 1942 the Republicans received 50.7% of the congressional vote to the Democrats 47.0%, but the Democrats continued their control of the House by a 222-209 margin
In 1952 the Democrats won 49.8% of the congressional vote to the Republicans 49.3% but the Republicans gained control of the House from the Democrats by a 221-213 margin.
Then as you point out, in 2012 the Republicans received 47.6% of the congressional votes compared to 48.8% for the Democrats, yet the Republicans maintained control of House.