For anyone who follows the political news, the term Gerrymandering is all over it. Understanding where the term comes from, what it means, and how it works is critical for those who know and those who don’t know. Let’s begin with its meaning.
According to Meriam Webster, Gerrymandering is the practice of dividing or arranging a territorial unit into election districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage in elections. Three others representing diverse fields weigh in. Writer, commentator and former reporter for the Miami Carl Hiaasen commented, To an untrained eye, the proposed boundaries look like etchings of a mapmaker on heavy pharmaceuticals. In reality it a masterpiece of diabloical gerrymanding.
Commentator Peter Beinart says, Bipartisan gerrymadering following the 2000 reapportionment produced hundreds of safe Democratic seats, hundred of safe Republican seats, and not much else. But hold your horses? What’s with reapportionment?
Every ten years, there’s a census. The numbers of seats in the house are fixed at 435. Simply put, if one district’s number go up, another’s have to go down. The state legislatures draw the districts. Now re-read Hiaasen’s comment. While there is law that governs the drawing of districts, whichever party controls the legistlature stretches that law until a court says it was broken. Thus districts are drawn in a way that would include the most voters of the party in power. Even if they look like a salamander. There’s the lizard, lets look at the politician.
In the early 19th century there was a powerful Governor named Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts. He submitted to the legislation a district that looked like a salamander, From the supposed similarity between a salamander and the shape of the new voting district on a map drawn when he was in office (1812), the creation of which was felt to favor his party. The map (with claws, wings, and fangs added) was published in the Boston Weekly Messenger, with the title The Gerry-Mander.And there you have it.
Before we get to practicalities lets let Julia Kirschenbaum of the Explainer weigh in. “The practice has been a thorn in the side of democracy for centuries, and with the new round of redistricting it’s a bigger threat than ever.”
In the late 50s there was a song that had this line, “Put’em together and what’ve you got? Bippity, Boppity, Boo.” In politics, what you get is gerrymandering. Both sound silly. Only one is dangerous to our political system. Let Kirschenbaum colleague Michael Li explain: Done right (and in accordance with the voting rights act), districts can be produced according to John Adams that are an exact portrait, a miniature of the people as a whole.” What we’ve got is probably making poor John roll over in his grave.
This is the part of the story where the politicians out smart the voters. Legendary Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neil, interestingly enough also from Massachusetts, said all politics is local. Many others have said that the most important level of government is the one closest to you because it is the one that can have a direct impact on your quality of life. Yet the numbers of people who turn out for city, county, and state legislative races is pathetic, even embarrassing. Can you name your elected representatives at those levels? I can’t. But we all should.
So with no one watching the hen house, who shows up? The fox, of course. He carries with him a box of salamanders.
One could paint a futuristic picture of election maps that show a majority of the districts so gerrymandered that the election outcome is preordained. When that happens, why vote? After all, it’s been put togehter so that your outcome makes as much sense as…well…bippity, boppity boo–at least from my perspective.
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