“In 1812, the governor of Massachusetts enacted a measure redrawing district lines to give his party, the Democratic-Republicans (then, one of America's two major political parties) an electoral advantage” (J.F., 2013, p. 1). Gerrymandering is the dividing of a state or county, into election districts so as to give one political party an advantage in many districts while concentrating the voting strength of the other party into as few districts as possible. every ten years. Some people have different opinions when it comes to gerrymandering. Sam Wang (2013) states, “Although gerrymandering is usually thought of as a bipartisan offense, the rather asymmetrical results may surprise you” (p.1). Most of the campaign winners use gerrymandering to secure more votes than their opponents. The state legislators use their powers to move around districting lines. There are many people who believe that gerrymandering is unfair. Different reforms have been discussed upon to end gerrymandering.
Nolan McCarty (2012) states that there is a positive side to gerrymandering, or rather that it is ineffective toward the outcome of elections. He states, “Although the Senate may be a bit less partisan than the House, it has become a very polarized body without the aid of any gerrymandering” (pg. 1) His opinion, McCarty, (2012) also describes how the smaller states in the United States are not altered by gerrymandering or redistricting. He specifically says, “Gerrymandering can have no effect” (2012, p.1).
Gerrymandering can be thought of as beneficial in one case. Some of the political leaders gerrymander in order to make the seats safer, in their opinion. They want to be positive that their political party will stay in power. In this case, however, t...
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Nelson, J. (2010, October 25). Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Gerrymandering. .
Retrieved May 28, 2014, from http://uxblog.idvsolutions.com/2010/10/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know.html Redistricting Reform. (2014, January 1). . Retrieved May 28, 2014, from http://redrawingthelines.sitewrench.com/redistrictingreform Reichert, J. (2010, March 10). How gerrymandering undermines democracy. . Retrieved May 28,
2014, from http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/0322/How-gerrymanderin-undermines-democracy Sidlow, E., & Henschen, B. (2009). Congress. America At Odds, Alternate Version (Sixth Edition ed., ). Belmont: Clark Baxter.
Wang, S. (2013, February 2). The Great Gerrymander of 2012. . Retrieved May 28, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/the-great-gerrymander-of-2012.html? ] pagewanted=all&_r=0
In our political system, the overuse of gerrymandering and political power has allowed politicians to choose their voters than the voters choosing their politicians. This ideology makes it easier for members of a particular party to better their chances of keeping their job. The two largest political parties in our country today are the Democrats and the Republicans. They fight each other every election year for seats in the respective districts, counties, and states to win more seats. An important
practices, known as gerrymandering, occurs in nearly every state. While some claim that the practice helps America, in reality gerrymandering harms American democracy and safety. Gerrymandering greatly affects society, and must become illegal to insure fair representation, the democratic processes in America continues, and America continues to thrive. When gerrymandering occurs, a political party draws the boundaries of an electoral district in a way that helps their party win elections over the other
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The Electoral Impact of Gerrymandering American democracy is predicated on the belief that government is both representative of and accountable to its citizenry, but the current system is plagued by issues which limit the responsiveness of government. Many of these flaws are inherent within the American electoral system, and as such, there is little which can be done to completely eliminate these issues, save major electoral reform. Certainly, a new crop of issues would soon sprout if ever such
forbids states from engaging in “racial gerrymandering.” Racial gerrymandering occurs when a state relies on race to draw up boundaries of one or more specific electoral districts. Such gerrymandering is impermissible because it harms an individual, who is subjected to a racial classification, and the individual’s legislator, who believes his primary obligation is to represent only a specific racial group. The Supreme Court views racial gerrymandering as so egregious that states cannot escape
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Gerrymandering is the redrawing of legislative boundaries to benefit the party in power. The missions of the redistricting game focused on fundamentals, partisan and bipartisan gerrymandering, the voting rights act, and reform. Redistricting is thought by some to favor one party over another. All of these play an important part in our election process. To begin with, there are three fundamental concepts of redistricting. Population equality requires the same number of people in each district. Continuity
The topic I have chosen is gerrymandering. Before getting too deep into this paper, I’d like to take this time to explain what gerrymandering is. To gerrymander is to redraw and resize electoral voting districts across a state. This is done to ensure that the political party that has control of the state can keep control by distributing voters in a manner that alters the people’s representation. To give a brief history lesson, the name gerrymander is derived from a politician by the name Elbridge
these positions. Moreover, the essay defines redistricting and gerrymandering and identifies their differences. Based on chapter 4, this essay further identifies districts that are gerrymandered within Texas and analyses how such gerrymandering impacted the 2012 election. The essay also analyses how housing districts are entwined with State and education representation within Texas. The U.S. Government comprises
Gerrymandering Steven Howell Florida International University Section 1 What is gerrymandering? According to Christina Greer, assistant professor of political science at Fordham University, it is the process of giving one political party the advantage over another political party by re-drawing district lines, a practice intended to establish a political advantage. Each party wants to gain as many districts as possible so that they can control different things such as the budget, and other
Gerrymandering according to the text, (Barbour & Wright, 2015, p.195) is the process of drawing district lines to benefit one group or another. Just reading the meaning alone, you can see it not fair. By benefiting one group, you are leaving out or short changing other groups. According to the article (“Gerrymandering – Proving All Politics Is Local│Politics & Policy,” n.d.) gerrymandering works by shaping legislative districts in various ways. Officeholders are able to affect which voters they will
Gerrymandering by definition refers to “district line-drawing that purposefully maximizes seats for one party or voting bloc” (Davidson et al., 47). Two commons forms of gerrymandering are cracking and packing districts. Cracking refers to splitting a group of people up (often into two separate districts) to weaken party strength or group strength. Likewise, packing refers to placing a group of people into one district to strengthen the weight of a given groups
census the district lines for the Texas Congress are redrawn. However, during the 78th Texas legislature in 2002 and 2003 the district line were redrawn after they were drawn after the 2000 census. This new district map would favor the Republicans; this of course bothered the Democratic who lost seats within the Texas Congress. This was eventually brought to the U.S. Supreme Court which released its opinion in 2006. In 2001 the Texas Legislature was in a deadlock of a new district map to coincide
If you have ever seen the 435 congressional districts on a map you would probably think to yourself that it resembles something similar to one giant jigsaw puzzle. These districts vary in size and certainly in shape. Unlike how county lines are decided within states, the congressional districts change every ten years after the Census is released. Why do they have to change exactly? Well, the answer to that question receives the same frustrating answer heard again and again: It’s politics. The
Gerrymandering is a way for a political party to keep control of a state by drawing the district lines unevenly. They make sure to keep a majority of the people in the districts are a part of their party, so their party will have more seats in the House of Representatives. This is a big problem because in most districts, there is no way for the minority party to win in those districts. The practice of Gerrymandering started in 1812, with the governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry. In this year