As redistricting begins across the country, we revisit our conversation with journalist and author David Daley about the consequences for American democracy if gerrymandering happens again this time around. This episode originally aired in January 2021, not long after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Daley has spent the past decade covering attempts by politicians to draw those maps to their advantage in a practice known as gerrymandering. He's also covered the groups of citizens across the country who pushed back against them to win some major reforms that will make the process look different now than it did in 2010.
Daley is a journalist and author of Unrigged: How Citizens are Battling Back to Save Democracy. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Slate, the Washington Post, and New York magazine. He is a senior fellow at FairVote, the former editor of Salon, and lives in Massachusetts.
Daley's op-ed on democracy deserts in The Guardian
Unrigged: How Americans are Battling Back to Save Democracy
One state's fight for fair maps
Next-generation democracy: An interview with high school student Kyle Hynes, who won Pennsylvania's citizen mapmaking contest.