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Nov 13, 2025
Partisan gerrymandering—when politicians draw voting district maps to favor their own party—has fueled legislative gridlock in 2025 America by ensuring that most lawmakers come from “safe” districts where they rarely have to compromise with the other side. Studies show this form of redistricting skews representation and locks in divided government, making it much harder for Congress or state legislatures to pass laws, especially on controversial issues. This entrenched partisanship means lawmakers are less accountable to the broader public and more focused on pleasing their party base, even if the public wants compromise. Research from the University of California Riverside finds many Americans see gerrymandering as a form of political corruption, which further erodes public trust in the fairness of elections and democracy itself. In 2025, legislative activity has sputtered; hundreds of bills linger without action while politicians blame each other, with real progress paralyzed by party-line voting and infighting.
Lansing, Michigan, offers a vivid case study of how gerrymandering’s legacy sustains gridlock. Historically, Michigan’s legislature was a textbook example of gerrymandering—with district lines carefully drawn by Republicans in secret to keep control even when they didn’t win the statewide popular vote. This imbalance caused Michigan’s lawmakers to pass far fewer bills and struggle with divided government, with Republican control of the House and Democrat control of the Senate often resulting in legislative stalemates. Reforms like the 2018 creation of the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission aimed to fix the problem by taking map-drawing out of politicians’ hands. However, the effects of decades of skewed maps linger, and in 2025, Lansing has seen one of its slowest years ever, passing just nine bills by August, compared with dozens or hundreds in prior years—clear evidence of partisan gridlock fueled by map manipulation
[Sources]
https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2025/08/12/gerrymandering-erodes-confidence-democracy
https://academic.oup.com/jla/article/17/1/77/8255538?login=false
https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/next-round-partisan-gerrymandering-fights
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