Geocivics, Redistricting, and Gerrymandering
A map can look clean and still be unfair, and a “weird” map can exist for reasons most people never learn. That’s why we sit down with Dr. Rebecca Theobald, an associate research professor at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, to unpack geocivics and the real mechanics behind redistricting and gerrymandering. We walk through what geocivics looks like in practice: learning the US Census and apportionment, understanding state rules, debating criteria, and then using free online mapping tools to draw and defend your own legislative district map.
We also tackle one of the most common misunderstandings in civics: districts represent people, not land. That’s how you can end up with a massive rural congressional district next to tiny urban districts without anyone getting “extra” representation. From there, we get concrete about the principles map drawers juggle, including equal population, contiguity, compactness, protecting minority voters, keeping counties and cities intact, and recognizing communities of interest. We talk about why independent redistricting commissions matter, what “fair representation” can mean in different communities, and how court decisions shape what challenges are possible.
Then we zoom out to the stakes: the decennial census, the fixed 435 House seats, shifting electoral votes, and how undercounts can change representation for a decade. If you teach civics, history, or geography, we also point to practical resources including the GeoCivics project and Dave’s Redistricting App so students can compare maps built for different goals and see the tradeoffs for themselves.
If this helped you see district lines differently, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can learn how maps shape democracy.
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School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
1 SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to Civics in a year.
I am really excited today.
If you're in Arizona, I think you've heard the term geocivics.
But for a lot of our listeners, you might have never heard of
this term geocivics.
And I am really excited to have Rebecca Theobald with us today
to have this conversation about geocivics and about
gerrymandering, which has kind of been a topic of conversation
as of late.
So, Dr.
Theobald, thank you so much for being here.
Can you introduce yourself for our listeners?
SPEAKER_00: I'm Rebecca Theobald, an associate research
professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental
Studies at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you again so much for being with us.
So, can I ask first, how do you define geocivics in practice?
SPEAKER_00: It's really a series of interactive approaches that
provide background to prepare students to draw a legislative
district map.
So we make sure that students understand the U.S.
Census and the process for apportionment and redistricting.
They need to know the rules in their state or their community.
They then discuss the key criteria for drawing the
electoral districts.
This, to me, is the most important aspect of this
process.
And you need to be able to explain your community and
understand the different uh interests that your the members
of your community have.
Then you get to the key part, which is creating your own
congressional state legislative or local districts using free
online mapping tools.
You should also be prepared to critique existing maps and
explain the map that you made and share your knowledge.
So that's really kind of the arc of geocivics.
And the focus is really on these understanding these tools for
electoral redistricting.
Well, we elect representatives geographically.
And this really goes back to the founding.
We need to understand the Connecticut compromise.
And I'm really excited to see how many different pieces of
understanding representation you have covered in this series.
So that's really important for students to be able to
understand the foundational issues related to
representation.
And uh John Adams in 1776, when talking about forming
government, uh, he was talking about how you decide how many
people will vote for or elect or appoint a few people to make the
laws.
And his question was: by what rules shall you choose your
representatives?
You have to agree upon the number and qualifications of
persons who shall have the benefit of choosing, or you
annex this privilege to the inhabitants of a certain extent
of ground.
And that's what we decided to do early on in the United States.
We decided that we would have everyone, well, everyone over
time of a certain age to participate in this process.
And this is very different than what we had, say, in Virginia,
when we uh were deciding who was able to participate in that
process.
You had to be male, white, own property, and you had to be a
member of the Anglican church.
So those kinds of qualifications disappeared over time, those
restrictions, and it uh made more sense to uh uh give this
privilege to the inhabitants of a certain extent of ground.
And then Adams goes on to talk about how it's really important
that this representative assembly should be, quote, in
miniature and exact portrait of the people at large.
It should think, feel, reason, and act like them.
So that also tells us how important it is to make sure
that we are carefully drawing these district lines.
And the challenge for understanding the geographic
aspects of this is that you've got different ways to draw a
map.
SPEAKER_01: So, how then do we take those ideas and create
these maps for districts?
SPEAKER_00: So we really want to bring geographic reasoning to
this discussion because that enables participants to
undertake spatial analysis to aid in the personal and societal
decision making and the problem solving by examining the
patterns that are displayed in maps generally.
And we also have to acknowledge that geospatial technology has
really changed how this is done over time.
So there are traditional redistricting principles that
most cartographers need to take into account when they are
drawing maps.
And those include that you have to strive for equal population,
avoid disenfranchising minorities, make sure all parts
of a district are touching each other, analyze whether a
district appears to be compact geometrically, keep political
subdivisions intact, describe important communities that have
legislative interests, maintain the core of the district,
acknowledge where current office holders reside, and address the
political affiliations of the residents.
And how you prioritize this criteria leads to very different
maps.
SPEAKER_01: I never thought about the they have to be
touching, because when I look at like congressional district
maps, like for the state of Arizona, there are some like
really big districts, but those are very rural areas.
And like in Phoenix, right, there's a ton of districts in
there because that's where a big portion of the population is.
And every state gets to make the decision on how they draw their
districts.
Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00: That is correct.
State legislatures have the responsibility for drawing the
district lines for both their own districts as well as for
congressional districts.
Now, independent commissions have been found to be
constitutional.
So several states do have what are actually independent
commissions as opposed to what they call commissions that are
politically appointed.
Those are not usually considered independent commissions.
And those have been shown to have much more fair
representation.
But you might ask, what is fair representation?
How do we how, you know, what constitutes a fairly drawn
legislative district?
And so there are just many diverse opinions about, you
know, certainly the founding documents of the government,
which then leads to different perspectives about how to
collect and distribute resources, which is the main
work of the legislature, and also applies to what constitutes
a fairly drawn district.
So when the people consider themselves fairly represented,
they're much more inclined to engage with government at
multiple levels.
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned the Supreme Court case, and I was
90% sure it was Arizona.
And I was like, I need to make sure I link that.
SPEAKER_00: So one of the interesting pieces in your in
the existing podcasts is right that you're addressing the
Connecticut Compromise, you're addressing Baker v.
Carr.
That's very important to discuss one person, one vote.
You also mentioned earlier there are challenges related to
understanding the difference between representation of area
and representation of people.
So we need to remember that early on, the decision was made
for the Senate to represent the states, two senators
representing an area, each state.
And then the House of Representatives represents the
population, with each state uh being sure to have at least one
member in the House of Representatives.
But that becomes really confusing when you look at a map
and you see a very large area being represented by one
individual.
That is a very important concept that students need to understand
that we are representing area, we are representing people, not
area.
SPEAKER_01: So when I look at the Arizona map, like I said,
there is a huge congressional district, but it's because it is
rural area.
There are not a lot of people who live there.
So it looks like, oh my gosh, this person has so much.
So can I ask then, how does that work?
Because when I again I'm looking at specifically Congressional
District 2 in Arizona, which basically goes all the way up in
Page in the northern part of Arizona, kind of down through
Penell County, almost to Tucson.
Like it is a huge chunk.
And those areas, those places are so different.
So how do we, I mean, or how do commissions, I guess, look at
that?
Because you're talking about these districts represent the
amount of people, but how does that work when the places are so
different when you have these big districts?
SPEAKER_00: Well, so redistricting, right, involves
the creation of maps.
And you've got to then understand the history, the
geography, and the economy of the region that is undergoing
redistricting.
So that's why we start with understanding the census with
the GeoCivics project.
And at that point, you really want to then also understand the
guidelines for that your area has set out for dividing up the
geographic area.
And those will vary, although at this point, one person, one
vote, equal population is still required at the congressional
level.
That varies at the state and local level.
So there can be more variance in city council districts, for
instance, or county commissions or parish councils or state
legislatures.
So that's those, that's why the rules are really important to
understand.
But if population distribution were the only important factor
related to electoral districts, then this would be a math
problem, right?
Each district in a state would have an equal number of people
divided into neat polygons with a representative for each.
Yet it is not possible to divide a state into electoral districts
mathematically because people are not distributed equally
across the landscape.
And nor is it sensible to ignore features such as mountains or
rivers.
So, in addition to practical and physical considerations, there
are questions of representing people from different
communities of interest.
So, for instance, the urban-rural divide, which is
prevalent in many communities, uh many states, is not a new
one, nor is, for instance, the lack of uh women representatives
in proportion to their numbers.
So any demographic characteristic might be
considered a point of discussion to be decided uh when
determining how to draw districts.
And we have to remember, too, that in representative
government, whoever is in power gets to make the decisions.
And once people are in power, they really want to remain in
control.
SPEAKER_01: So if I am an educator and I'm, you know, I'm
teaching this in my classroom, and you brought up women, right?
Because when we look at like a population of a district, how do
we look at and explain to students, you know, because a
lot of times we hear of like women are 50% or more than 50%
of the population, but they're not, you know, of the House and
the Senate or minority districts?
Because I think that, you know, we are recording this on May
5th, 2026.
And there is a lot going on with redistricting politically in our
nation.
So how do we kind of square that?
SPEAKER_00: Right.
So uh women are are certainly over time have increased their
percentages at various levels.
And we are not taking the tax as being done in some European
countries, for instance, that are saying you must have a
certain number of women on your slate.
So that's that's not the direction we're taking.
But right now, of course, we really are being challenged
regarding minority voters.
And a question about whether minority voters have less
opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate
in the political process and elect their preferred candidate
of choice has recently been decided by the Supreme Court in
Louisiana v.
Calais.
And what they said is they do not have any more difficulty
electing individuals of their choice.
So this special protection is really being removed.
So we then have to assess as a community what is, again, what
is a fair district?
And it really goes back to these fundamental principles and
thinking about the number, politics, shape, geography,
race, sociology, all of that plays into how you draw a line.
And there are also a number of other considerations not
included in these principles, such as proportionality,
competitiveness, responsiveness, stability, and having a voice
for the marginalized.
And what we have determined in the United States is that race
can be an effective proxy for party preference, and vice
versa.
So this also really elicits the need for new tools to address
partisan gerrymandering, which really has been decided by the
court that they say, well, partisan gerrymandering, that is
fine.
But what cartographers know is that any shape constraints limit
the power of the map drawer.
And extreme gerrymandering usually requires eccentrically
shaped districts.
So we need to really prepare students and community members
to be able to look at these maps and understand what the
characteristics of the people residing in those communities
are and how those maps are being divided.
So, you know, this is not new.
Early in the history of the American Republic, manipulation
of voting district maps became a device where, quote, the
majority party in a state legislature so plans the
legislative districts that it is able to control the greatest
possible number of them.
And that's different than what we really wanted initially from
John Adams' point of view, which was having a representative
assembly.
SPEAKER_01: So we talk about, you know, the founding, and the
term gerrymandering actually comes from a gentleman whose
name is Elbridge Gary.
So can you talk a little bit about how he kind of he is the
founder of this concept of gerrymandering, even though his
last name is Gary.
Correct.
SPEAKER_00: So we do not know exactly when uh the hard G
turned to a soft G, but uh I I will say too that it is rather
sad that Elbridge Gary is only remembered for this particular
process because he also served as vice president of the United
States and governor of Massachusetts.
So and was a signer.
So he he really had there was quite a bit more to Elbridge
Gary than than this decision that he made, though he agreed
to minimize Federalist votes by stringing together a district
that a cartoonist uh transformed into a salamander.
So this was in Massachusetts in 1812.
So that's when gerrymander entered the political lexicon.
In 1812, only 11 Federalist legislators were elected in
Massachusetts to 29 Republicans, although the Federalists got
51,766 popular votes and the Republicans 50,164.
So this really looked like cheating to most voters.
So it turned out in 1813 the original gerrymander was
repealed.
But it again, people saw this, they use it all the time as
really a shorthand and do not necessarily understand that
redistricting is not equal to gerrymandering.
And that's something I think that's very important to help
students understand is that redistricting is a very
legitimate process and needs to be undertaken thoughtfully.
But basically, the gerrymander was used as a gadget to
concentrate the strength of the opposition party in as few
districts as possible, creating many inequities in
representation, as well as some really weird-looking districts.
So this there are many ways to talk about gerrymandering.
And I regret that we now use it as kind of a shorthand for just
any poorly drawn districts.
SPEAKER_01: And that's interesting because
redistricting has to happen.
Again, I'm looking at my state of Arizona.
Like Arizona has changed quite a bit since I've moved here.
And so redistricting is necessary.
When does redistricting happen then?
Is it always after a census?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, redistricting traditionally happens after the
decennial census.
The first one was in 1790.
And who should how many people should represent them.
And up until 1911, we actually conveniently added more
representatives to the United States House of Representatives
until they really arbitrarily just decided to stop up until
1911.
Whenever a new state was added, new representatives were added
to the United States House of Representatives.
But then they decided really rather arbitrarily to just stop
adding uh numbers of representatives and stopped at
435.
So at that time, the whole apportionment process became
very complicated, very mathematical.
There are excellent descriptions of how this works from the U.S.
Census.
And bottom line, you have to decide 435 members in the House
of Representatives.
All states receive at least one seat.
And then after those 50 seats have been distributed, which
other states get additional representatives and then how
many?
And this is why the census is so important, is because you as a
state could lose out on an additional representative simply
because you had an undercount in the census.
SPEAKER_01: And that affects electoral votes when we're
talking about voting for president.
Because once they they do that, I mean electoral votes, because
again, I'm talking about my home state of Arizona.
I know that we've gained electoral votes steadily because
our population has increased.
So after, you know, the census, it's we tend to get more, but
they shift from other places.
So it's not like you said, there are 435 voting members of
Congress.
That that hasn't changed.
So if we if a state gains, it means another state loses.
So this sounds like a mathematical nightmare.
And all honestly, like a geographic nightmare because the
population is transient.
Like you said, you know, we're looking at mountains and rivers
and lakes and looking at places versus people.
Like this feels very complicated.
And I feel like this question is obvious, but I'm still going to
ask it.
Why does this topic matter for our students today?
Right.
SPEAKER_00: So why does this topic matter for our students?
First, in many places across the world, this very complicated
process, which has to uh incorporate mathematical,
political, and geographical concerns, is done by an
independent commission that is not political, that has experts
in all of these fields.
The United States is exceptional in that it involves bipartisan
members of the state legislature in making these decisions.
So unfortunately, students must pay attention to this because
they will have to go forward and pay attention to how the
districts are being drawn.
In other places in the world, it matters less.
And frankly, then you don't have to spend your time as the
multiple numbers of people who are uh working toward good
governance do in fair districts, PA, or the Wisconsin Fair Maps,
or any of these other groups across the country that are
really focused on making sure representation is fair so that
everybody can have a voice.
So a cartographer really has to take into account multiple
factors when drawing these congressional districts.
And that's what I want students to be prepared to do.
We actually have a student in Alabama, a college student, who
proposed a map and it was accepted by the state Supreme
Court for his state senate.
Really?
This is absolutely this is possible.
Oh and also by drawing a map, you understand much more
succinctly how difficult it is to draw these maps, and you have
a lot more compassion, I hope, for the people who are uh
working to do this.
And of course, it really used to be that you couldn't do this
because geospatial technology uh was not available.
You used to draw maps by hand.
And then when geospatial technology came along, kind of
in the late 90s, early 2000s, well, the people who understood
how to manage the geospatial technology tools would secret
those away in buildings that not everybody else could have access
to, and they would draw the lines to say, okay, so here's
your district, and I'll trade you these community for that
community to make sure that you get elected.
So that's not really very fair, and it really only provides the
tools for the people who understand how geospatial
technology works.
So this really is just as with anything else, the people who
have the power then also have the power to make sure that they
remain uh in charge.
So by looking at all of the criteria and understanding,
really kind of the first thing you're doing is saying, how do
we get equal population districts?
Which is again how we get disparate districts where in
urban areas the districts are geographically very small,
whereas in rural districts where the population is more
dispersed, those areas are much larger.
And that is the kind of fundamental understanding that
students need to have.
But then they start to divide their communities in with these
different criteria, and then they have to decide what they're
going to prioritize.
Are they going to prioritize a competitive district so that
equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats, more or less, are in
these communities, and so that there might be the possibility
of turnover over time?
So that would require your drawing districts that might
divide individuals who reside in that district.
So instead of keeping a rural community together, you might
divide that rural community.
Is that something that you want to take some heat for?
But that will give you a competitive district.
Other communities want to make sure that they are prioritizing
keeping their incumbent, for instance, and and not dividing
or drawing out uh somebody who uh should be in that district
because that's that's where they have traditionally represented.
So all of those criteria make a difference in terms of where you
draw the lines.
My biggest concern is that we are not discussing that.
We don't ever talk about anything besides the partisan
aspects of drawing district lines.
By we, I mean primarily the news media.
And so it becomes our responsibility as educators to
ensure that students are prepared to ask harder questions
than what we are having today.
So this is really where I want to focus the students is looking
at the real data in their communities and to understand
the tools that they can use to do this work.
And really guiding students in the understanding of the value
and the necessity of compromise, because you cannot have
everything that you want in a map.
It's simply impossible.
And so, therefore, you are going to have to say, I'm giving up X
to address Y, and these are the reasons.
So it's an excellent opportunity, not simply to draw
a map and have that as a product, but it also enables
educators to guide their students in giving explanations.
So that's really the opportunity here for a learning process, is
making sure that the students understand how they can really
describe what their thought process is and why it's
important.
SPEAKER_01: And I do want listeners, if you're like, this
all sounds really cool.
I just don't know how to use it in my classroom.
There is an incredible website that the University of Colorado,
Colorado Springs has.
I'm looking at it right now.
There are articles, some written by Dr.
Theobald.
There is stuff for teachers, for students, community members.
There's also state-specific things.
And you can go on this.
And I think the one thing I really love about this is
oftentimes we think geography has to be this siloed thing from
civics, from history, and it's not.
All of these things marry so well together.
And I don't think you evolved, is there anything else you want
to make sure our listeners know?
And I again I will link this website in our show notes
because it is full of resources.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think students really are trying to
make sense of a topic that is in the news.
So this not only prepares them to understand the redistricting
and representation and apportionment process in a
government or civics or history class, but it's really confusing
to them when they are taught that districts are formed to
represent the people living there.
But then the statements that are made by our elected officials,
our media, people in the media are saying about, you know,
Texas deserves X number of representatives, or we want to
elect more people who will support the Speaker of the
House.
We have to remember that the United States is not a
parliamentary democracy.
We are supposed to be a democratic republic.
And that means that our representatives are supposed to
be reflective of the people who are living in a particular
geographic area.
And students really uh over the last several months, they've
they've really been concerned about the polarizing approaches
to understanding the uh redistricting process.
They don't want to, you know, avoid a naive presumption that
only representatives of color could represent constituents of
color in an effective fashion, but they also don't want to make
the naive assumption that race does not matter and that we are
now living in a post-racial US or that racism is no longer a
thing.
And one of the ways to address this is really to look at the
different congressional maps and different state legislative maps
that are available on Dave's Redistricting app.
And Dave's redistricting site enables people to provide maps
for their state that they have constructed.
And those are exemplary maps.
And they're not exemplary in the sense of, oh, this is the best
map and the one that you should choose, but exemplary in terms
of the criteria.
So if you wanted to say we we want to make sure that we have
the least amount of splitting of political jurisdictions, so we
are going to avoid splitting cities or counties or school
districts.
This is the map that you would want to implement.
If you wanted a competitive map, this map is for your state is
the map that you should implement.
If you wanted a map that was proportional based on recent uh
political uh choices that the electorate has made, there's a
map for that.
And understanding how those maps are explaining the electorate
and how then that electorate is moving people into office,
that's really the connection between the geography, the
cartography, and then the representative government.
SPEAKER_01: Dr.
Thamble, thank you so much.
Again, you've given us such a wealth of information.
And, you know, what I'm really taking from this is maps are not
just something we look at.
They are primary sources, they are part of everyday life and
what we're doing.
And, you know, you mentioned Baker versus Carr.
The Arizona case was Arizona State Legislature versus Arizona
Independent Redistricting Commission, because the
legislature took this to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme
Court said, like, no, re-like independent redistricting
commissions are okay.
They don't violate the elections clause of the US.
So there's so much for teachers, for students, even for lifelong
learners to look at.
So thank you, thank you, thank you.
And listeners, again, I will put the geo-civic side on there,
this stuff for teachers, students, community members, if
you're a college instructor.
There's just a wealth of information because I'm gonna
say I don't know that the redistricting and gerrymandering
conversation is gonna go away.
I think we're gonna be talking about this for quite a while.
So again, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: It was a pleasure.
Thank you very much.