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Campaign from Mischief @ No Fixed Address illustrates the threat of aggressive political redistricting on voter rights

Pizza is one of America’s favorite comfort foods. But it becomes a vehicle for making U.S. citizens uncomfortable in this new campaign from RepresentuUs, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting voting and government corruption. 

RepresentUs teamed with agency Mischief @ No Fixed Address this past weekend to open a new pizza joint in Texas, Gerry’s Partisan Pizza Shop. However, not everybody was able to enjoy its cheesy, meaty pies—only those living in Austin, TX in the state’s 37th congressional district. The point was to demonstrate how destructive gerrymandering can be to the political process. 

The act of gerrymandering occurs when a political group manipulates the boundaries of voting districts within an area in order to win votes in its favor and hurt its opponents. In the case of this stunt, while one group of consumers had access to Gerry’s pies, others living even just steps away from the restaurant were denied them because of district rigging. 

The varieties of pizza on offer drove the point home:  Mandered Margherita, Choosing Voters Cheese, and Politicians' Pick Pepperoni.

RepresentUs decided to open up Gerry’s in Austin because it said the city represents an example of “extreme packing” gerrymandering that concentrates Democratic voters into one area to reduce their overall influence, as state Republican lawmakers look to bolster the power of its incumbents across the rest of Texas. The organization added that gerrymandering is a country-wide issue that could force 188 million Americans to live with unfair districting maps for the next decade, according to the “Gerrymandering Threat Index” it released in April.

"By rigging the delivery zone of Gerry's Partisan Pizza, RepresentUs is showing voters how politicians manipulate voting districts to rig elections—and giving voters a way to do something about it,”  said Joshua Graham Lynn, president of RepresentUs in a statement.

The campaign also includes a hotline of sorts—consumers can text the word pizza to the number 505-405-9505 to start a convo with Gerry himself.

Starting on Wednesday, Gerry will also be going on a two-week food truck tour, during which he’ll be dishing out free pizza plus info on how gerrymandering practices impede voting rights. The truck will make stops at areas battling it out over fair districting maps, including Greensboro and Raleigh, NC; Annapolis, MD; Tallahassee and Orlando, FL; Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, PA; and Madison and Appleton, WI. 

“We hope that through the lens of another service Americans love, pizza delivery, more people will see how gerrymandering is undermining our democratic process and diminishing the power of voters,” said Mackenzie Hart, one of the Mischief creatives behind the idea. 

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Certain Austinites will be eligible for free pizza this week from a pop-up called Gerry’s Partisan Pizza — but only those who live in the newly added District 37, which many considered to be gerrymandered. The pop-up, which features pizza from downtown Austin restaurant the Backspace, will run Friday, October 22 through Sunday, October 24 out of the 507 San Jacinto Boulevard location.

Gerry’s Partisan Pizza will offer three kinds of pizza — margherita, cheese, and pepperoni — available for delivery or in-person ordering (however, customers must order online to determine eligibility, though the site isn't live just yet). The pizzas come delivered with information about how to fight gerrymandering.

The pop-up is being put on by RepresentUs, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that works to pass anticorruption laws in the areas of lobbying, transparency, and campaign finance. Founded in 2012, RepresentUs is perhaps best known for creating Gil Fulbright, a fake political candidate who for a time out-fundraised real presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee. RepresentUs is working with creative agency Mischief @ No Fixed Address and public relations agency Dini von Mueffling Communications for this project.

Texas District 37 is a new congressional district encompassing Austin and San Antonio added as one of two new seats in the U.S. Congress from the 2020 census. As drawn by the Republican-controlled Texas government, it is widely believed to be gerrymandered because it concentrates Democratic-leaning voters who might otherwise influence elections in nearby areas that feature Republican incumbents. Its first representative will be elected in 2022.

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RepresentUs and agency Mischief serve up slices with piping hot political education.
Gerrymandering is an ongoing threat to fair elections, yet many Americans still don’t know the severity of the threat it poses. Disenfranchising voters and preventing competition in general elections are only a fraction of the sweeping negative effects that manipulating electoral boundaries can cause.

Using the 37th U.S. House district in Austin as an example of the nationwide issue of gerrymandering, the nonpartisan voting rights advocacy group RepresentUs is launching its Gerry’s Partisan Pizza campaign. Showing us a pizza delivery service that only serves those that live within the gerrymandered borders of a voting district, the initiative is showcasing the inconsistencies of the process, as well as what can be lost when voter accessibility is threatened.

Created in partnership with Mischief @ No Fixed Address and Dini Von Mueffling Communications, this initiative is in response to the once-in-a-decade redistricting currently underway and the corrupt politicians willing to cut their districts to their own political benefit.

Launching in Texas Oct. 27, the truck will also make stops in Greensboro, N.C., Raleigh, N.C., Annapolis, M.D., Tallahassee, F.L., Orlando, F.L., Harrisburg, P.A., Pittsburgh, P.A., Madison, W.I. and Appleton, W.I. This two-week food truck tour is focused on making stops in gerrymandered districts across the country. The truck offers pizzas like the Mandered Margherita, Choosing Voters Cheese and Politicians’ Pick Pepperoni, all of which come with educational information on how to fight aggressive partisan voter manipulation.

“If you don’t like pizza places that hand-pick their customers, you are going to hate it when you hear about politicians hand-picking voters,” said Joshua Graham Lynn, president of RepresentUs, in a statement. “By rigging the delivery zone of Gerry’s Partisan Pizza, RepresentUs is showing voters how politicians manipulate voting districts to rig elections—and giving voters a way to do something about it.”

This is a continuation of the grassroots work that RepresentUs has done to educate voters through platforms like the Gerrymandering Threat Index report and the Redistricting Report Card. The campaign includes local TV and allows consumers to text “Pizza” to 505-405-9504 to talk to Gerry about voter equity.