Once every decade, the lines of Congressional districts within states are redrawn to accommodate population changes. Some areas are not in favor of the way the districts are being split up right now.
Republicans in North Carolina made the boundaries of districts work in their favor, but people have complained that one of the districts goes through 19 different counties and twists around way too much. This convoluted boundary brings it's perimeter to be 1,319 miles long.
Utah says that districts should be grouped according to the needs of the people. Salt Lake County is a huge metropolitan city, and is interested in expanding its transportation system and protecting its watershed, but its neighbors have other desires. Rural areas surrounding the city want to focus on more highway money and fewer restrictions on use of federal land. The Democratic mayor of Salt Lake County, Peter Corroon, wanted the districts shaped according to the city being in the center and the rural areas all around. Republicans who drew the district lines preferred "pizza-slice-shaped" districts that each contain a part of the city plus rural areas. Utah is mostly a Republican state, but Salt Lake County has the highest concentration of Democrats. Corroon stated, "We asked for a doughnut hole, we expected a pizza, and instead we got a plate of scrambled eggs." Representation is based on population, but shouldn't it also take into account the types of areas?
Democrats who drew the map in Illinois by creating urban districts that included small parts of Republican suburbs. This gives Democrats an advantage and diminishes the amount of say the overruled Republicans have in their districts.
Representatives are supposed to represent the needs of the people from their district, but what happens when the needs are completely unrelated?
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
It's interesting to me that something as seemingly innocent as the redrawing of population districts have tremendous political and social underlyings. Although I do understand where both parties are coming from in their unusual divisions of district boundaries, I think that in the long run, messy redistribution would simply lead to more social and economic problems. District lines should be drawn based on population, but I agree with the article in that representation should be taken into account. If multiple (and conflicting) factions are present in each district, what is the point of splitting the land up into districts in the first place?
To answer Rebecca's question, I think that the point of carving out districts is actually to reduce the conflicting factions in each district. By manipulating the shape of the districts, a legislator can attempt to ensure their reelection if their district has a concentration of his/her party's constituents.
This sounds like gerrymandering, an unfair, unrepresentative way of redistricting by manipulating the district lines in a ridiculous way to benefit the party in power. I feel like carving out districts in a "scrambled egg shape" would cause more conflicts rather than reduce them, but I'm not positive.
I agree with Lexi. I think the way redistricting has been described in this post is going to cause many conflicts. It is more important for the districts to benefit the people not the political party in power. This is a perfect example of politicians trying to help their political party instead of the people they are supposed to represent.
I agree with the previous comments. This is wrong but it is common in the United States. Many areas are manipulated to be a certain way. I saw part of documentary that was about this issue and it showed that some of the boundaries of the districts were the highway overhangs or rivers to get certain groups or not have certain groups. There was one district in North Carolina that had a connector that was a river so that it did not include the urban area, that would have voted Democratic and were predominatly black.
This action is in fact gerrymandering. The sad reality of gerrymandering is the fact that the people who are called to draw the district line maps are the exact people who are going to be voted on come election time. Gerrymandering is a crime in the sense that politicians draw district lines as a way to preserve their own power and help their friends into office. Moreover, the reigning political party in the state legislature at the time is often able to redesign the district lines in its own favor. This is ultimately a manipulation of the way democracy functions.
Thankfully, last year, a California ballot initiative, prop 20, struck down the practice of gerrymandering in California. (One of the few good initiatives that has come out of California's initiative system in my opinion.) Hopefully, other states will soon follow suit.
I agree with lexi that this sounds like gerrymandering and I also dont believe it fair. I think they should come to an agreement with both parties to find a way to do redistricting.
The previous commenters bring up a good point about districts being partitioned by interest--if areas contain too many conflicting factions, they become much less effective in representing the needs of the people, as Rebecca mentioned. However, given politicians' underlying motives concerning reelection, it's unlikely that such an opportune chance to influence vote distributions would go unused. Perhaps the best solution would be to have an objective third party draw district lines, when redrawing population districts become necessary.
So much for what Madison said in Fed 10. The idea behind a federal republic is that competing interests balance out, yet (as previous comments have said) due to gerrymandering one is just dominating the others and electing the same politician.
Perhaps there should be some federal or third party oversight when districts are redrawn. Maybe by the Census Bureau? I doubt it could happen though. It would require an amendment since district-making is a power left to the states if I recall correctly and the people in power by gerrymandering wouldn't approve of such a measure to take away gerrymandering.
Post a Comment