Weird Wednesday: Who dat guy?
In 18-something, Elbridge Gerry, Governor of the start of Massachusetts, reluctantly signed a bill that allowed the redrawing of a voting district that observers said looked like a salamander.
The result of the redrawing was a gain of congressional seats for the ruling party (which just so happened to benefit Elbridge’s party), and after the political cartoon of the Gerry-mander was drawn, the practice was named gerrymandering.
Fun fact: Elbridge’s last name is pronounced ‘gary’ with a hard ‘g’
Every 10 years, after a census, states can redraw district lines according to the new population distribution. As a representative, you would want your district to be as compact as possible to allow ease of travel to visit constituents. But as the graphic below shows, that can result in a party always getting the same votes, so the redrawing of district lines can flip the advantage.
Here is the result of gerrymandering in several states:
Is this legal you ask? Yes. In some states, although it is not usually done mid-census, but if the ruling party controls the house they can do anything, as recent events in the US federally have shown.
Which brings us to Texas. a few weeks ago, the US president asked—sorry that should read ‘told’—the Texas republican governor to redraw his congressional map so that he can gain 5 republican seats in next year’s mid-term election.
To be fair, both parties have used the practice in the past, but this latest attempt seems blatantly overt in it’s desire to maintain power in the House of Representatives.
Here’s a Democratically held district in Chicago:
This was approved by a bipartisan group to reflect the changing Latino population, but it does illustrate how complicated the political system is.
-Leon
Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words, and his latest sci-fi mystery, Euphrates Vanished.
My new book page: http://books.linesbyleon.com/
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You'd think there would be a better way.
