Partisan bias occurs when the translation of the popular vote into legislat
ive seats differs between competing parties. This paper contains a theoreti
cal and empirical analysis of the consequences of an efficient gerrymander
for the partisan bias of an electoral system. Under partisan apportionment,
bias is shown to depend on some structural features of the electoral envir
onment; namely, the size of the voting population and the number of single-
member districts within a political jurisdiction. A statistical analysis re
veals the predicted relationships in data on Congressional elections across
states in the 1950-1984 period. This paper highlights the importance of so
me measurable features of the electoral environment for determining bias an
d provides an indirect test of partisan gerrymandering in congressional app
ortionment processes.