Posted on 07/02/2017 10:28:07 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
What do you think is the most important issue in American politics today? Criminal justice reform? Health care? Global climate change? Immigration? Gay rights? Economic justice? ISIS? Creeping totalitarianism?
All of those things (and more!) are incredibly important, but they may all be secondary to something else: gerrymandering. And earlier this week, the Supreme Court announced that it was going to decide a case that could potentially reform the practice entirely.
For those not familiar with the term, gerrymandering is the process by which state legislators draw voting district boundaries, for both congressional and state legislature districts. That sounds pretty boring, but in essence the power to draw voting district boundaries is, in many situations, akin to the power to determine who wins elections.
This process usually happens every 10 years, and the party in control of the state legislature is, in most states, the one that's in charge. In theory, re-drawing boundaries happens in order to balance the districts with population changes. Every 10 years, the census data is released, so if a district has grown in size, then the boundaries need to change so that each district in the state has roughly the same number of voters.....
(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...
All of which is crap.
People are not best represented by those who look like them, that’s just the same racist nonsense redirected.
Closer than you think. We have the uniparty today. All democrat socialists and the republican leadership and their cowardly enablers.
Illinois is the worst. And Iowa is very good. With Wyoming being the best of course. Illinois congressman Luis Gutierrez has among the worst districts in the country. A big horseshoe shaped area that gets as thin as half a block in some areas. Its designed to have his residence as well as three Hispanic neighborhoods which are on different parts of the city. The district does its best to exclude black areas because they would vote for a black congressman and they don’t want to fight. Chicago votes over 70% democrat but still manages to blame republicans for their problems.
It's not ease of voting, nor similar constituent concerns, nor ease of the office holder to service his district.
It's about making districts that can be controlled to assure a job for life for the congressperson. Slimes. Incumbency is a huge problem and anything that can destroy it has my support.
Guaranteed minority districts is not about minority representation. It is about getting reliable and long serving Democrats.
Yeah. Which ALSO does not guarantee best representation. (Preach to the choir, I know)
Considering certain members of the CBC, like Shelia Jackson Lee, it guarantees the worst.
Universal term limits. One term on the federal level, two terms or no more than 4 years at the local level for all elected officials.
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