Before the 2010 census, Missouri had 9 representatives in the United States House of Representatives. After the census, Missouri lost a representative and now only has 8 representatives in the United States House of Representatives. This process of altering the number of representatives in a state after a census is known as reapportionment. As a result of this change in representation, Missouri also redrew its districts. The process of redrawing districts due to a census is known as redistricting. Unfortunately, this can lead to gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the process of using redistricting for the purpose of obtaining a partisan or factional advantage.…
Gerrymandering is a practice used when electoral districts are being set and are used to create a political advantage for specific group or party by manipulating district boundaries. For example, if one state was more likely to vote Republican you could have the area redrawn into an opposing district to win to allow better results for the opposing party.…
Political gerrymandering is the drawing of electoral district lines in a manner that discriminates against a political party. When used to insure party success, political gerrymandering is usually legal but can be contested. At this time it is legal to draw district lines to protect incumbents of both parties.…
Thus gerrymandering isn't unconstitutional. People can draw the districts however large or small that they want, there is no specification of what is lawful and what is not in the constitution There isn’t even a section or article in the entire constitution where it talks about redrawing districts. To be more specific there are no provisions (a condition or requirement in a legal document) outlined in the Constitution forbidding gerrymandering. Republicans held a majority in both houses of the state legislature, and a Republican was governor so of course they are going to draw districts into their favor; who wouldn’t? Furthermore there are little to no supreme court cases where gerrymandering was found unconstitutional. So if it is not unconstitutional or even in the constitution how can it be justiciable? The job of the supreme court is to uphold the constitution so if its constitutional it shouldn't be in the supreme…
The main purpose of gerrymandering is to increase the number of legislative seats that can be won by the political party which is in charge of redrawing the district boundaries during that period of time, and to create “safe” seats for the party’s incumbent legislators which are seats in which the incumbent will always win re-election. Gerrymandering is the redrawing of election district boundaries to give an electoral advantage to a particular candidate or party. It has been recognized as a part of the American political landscape since 1812. The term derives from a redrawing of US Representative districts in Massachusetts before the 1812 elections, when Elbridge Gerry was governor. People said the district was reminiscent of a salamander and thus the term Gerry-mander was coined. The Constitution requires that representation in the House of Representatives be apportioned to states on the basis of population. So, every ten years we count up the number of people living in each state and making sure that each state gets at least one House member, divide up the rest of the seats among the states equally. States with large populations get a bigger amount of house seats smaller states get just the one. A variety of Supreme Court cases, however, have applied the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause to the process of drawing legislative districts resulting in a requirement that each district have roughly the same population. So after each Census, states and localities have to redraw their district lines to ensure that the districts are roughly equal. This process redrawing of district lines has been blamed for almost every problem in American politics. The redistricting process therefore became a target for political reformers. In 2008, Californians enacted Prop. 11 and created the Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC). State legislators would no longer be able to pick their own…
The republicans took up 16 Northerns states and the democrats took up 14 southern states. However, Elections were always close because support for either party was close. States that are on the fence were the ones that determined the winning party are called “swing states.” During the civil war, the democrats offered state’s rights party, decentralization, and limited government, winning the vote and gaining control over the White House. The Republicans were based on reconstruction and fought for civil rights, a national government, and wanted high tariffs. After the civil war, the Democratic party and the…
Gerrymandering- is the drawing of congressional districts to produce a particular electoral outcome without regard to the shape of the district.…
Todd argued that the ten-year redistricting cycle structures state legislative elections in a way that did not exist prior to the 1960‘s. The study showed that the desire to obtain majority party status is a powerful influence on party strategy in states with legislative redistricting processes. Rather than contribute money to candidates solely on the basis of viability, party organizations from both the legislative majority party and minority party focus their energies on seats held by the majority party. Contrary to previous findings, however, these offensive and defensive strategies are not universal party strategies. Rather, the value of being a legislative majority party is so magnified, due to the possibility of creating the next decade‘s districts, that redistricting motivates these…
Each decade politicians become wound up for the political war of who will win the control of Congress for the next decade or possibly longer. One of the most effective ways of manipulating elections, shy of corruption, is gerrymandering. Gerrymandering (pronounced “garrey” mandering not “jerry” mandering) is the government’s advantage of one political party over another. It is the process of drawing weirdly shaped lines to define a district. The term is derived from Elbridge Gerry, who was one of the founding fathers, who drew a weirdly shaped district that resembles a salamander, it was henceforth dubbed gerrymandering. One of the unfortunate truths in American society and political life is that although we are told that each individual vote counts, the reality is that sometimes people’s votes are less equal. Political power in Congress is based upon population, the bigger the state is, for example California and Texas, the bigger the reward is of more seats in Congress, rather than Rhode Island or Delaware. The states with a higher population are appointed more seats and they get those seats from the states with fewer people that are counted from the census. The effervescent image of American democracy is that of a vibrant government that is open to change and subject to will of its voters, unfortunately this is an illusion. The problem with redrawing lines is that it eliminates the evaluation process that the public has by preventing competitive elections. I feel like it is just another loophole, oppressive scheme for political officials to try and dictate against us. Politicians seem to have the mutual feeling that it is a birth right for them to represent certain districts but we are still in a democracy, not a dictatorship or a monarchy, we have the right to elect who we feel represents our communities voice most appropriately and violating that right by eliminating the person we feel best suites us from our district it is violating our Constitutional and…
I understand why you are torn when comes to gerrymandering, but for me I don’t think it’s fair. As the the definition of gerrymandering it is “redistricting to benefit a particular group”. What I really don’t like about it, is states get divided the way the congress wants and it changes at every . Even if the states gets redistricting in a weird way and it doesn’t make sense by looking at the map, as long as the district ends up with equal population. I don’t think the way it’s proportioned to make sure that one party has a greater chance of getting elected is right. It’s like if you live there and you end up in a population that you don’t belong in, you may have to move. I don’t think I should have to move, just to belong in the same party…
After voters elect government officials to office, they are assigned districts to represent by their respective state. Every ten years, a census of the United States population is taken, and the boundaries are redrawn so that every district has approximately the same population to ensure equal voter representation and is not controlled by a major political party. It is important to draw the lines so that every community in a district is given the chance to voice their concerns and opinions. It is also important to make sure that the lines are not manipulated by a political party to gain political advantage - this is called gerrymandering. Gerrymandering gives control to a major political party and affects the issues that a government will look…
Gerrymandering has become a real issue in many states. “Gerrymandering is the process where the majority party draws an election district map with district boundary lines that give itself…
Gerrymandering allows for a particular party to get bills passed easily by having a majority of their party in The House of Representatives and Senate. With this increase they will have enough votes to make a bill veto proof. Political and racial gerrymandering are unconstitutional and illegal. As stated in, The voting rights act of 1965 “prohibits spreading minorities across districts”The court’s solution required that states create majority-minority districts — districts in which the majority of the voting-age population belonged to a single minority. With voting that occurred largely along racial lines, these districts allowed minority voters to elect their candidates of choice.…
The Electoral College is an institution that may have served a purpose 200 years ago when the founding fathers needed a system that would be met with approval by both large and small states. The Electoral College is a flawed method of electing our President that has created problems in previous elections and is likely to be the source of problems in the future. The Electoral College provides an undemocratic method of choosing our president that potentially undermines the will of the voters. Not only can a candidate be elected without actually winning the most votes, it puts our elections at the mercy of electors who don't always cast their vote as pledged. I intend to demonstrate that the problems inherent in this voting method far outweigh any benefits it may provide. Replacing the winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes with a system such as proportional representation or eliminating the college altogether in favor of direct election is the best way to ensure a trouble-free and fair election…
Originally, Congress would be seen as a 1 chamber with only a certain number of representatives per state. The debate was how many representatives should each state have and with this came up 2 plans. Delegates from the larger states came up and supported the Virginia plan which called for different number of representatives per state based on population. Delegates from smaller…