American Politics : A Growing Problem For The Political Process

Forgette Richard, Garner Andrew, and Winkle John. “Do redistricting principles and practices affect US state legislative electoral competition? State Politics and policy quarterly, 20(9) (2009): 151 175.

Manifestations of political gridlock are everywhere in our country. They can go from failure of Congress to pass a budget for the United States, Congress not confirming enough judges to fill any vacancies in the federal courts, states continuing conformations about roles of labor unions in representation of state employees, or the standoff over the affordable care act. New political players and movements tend to highlight the increasing inability to compromise of find common grounds to stop the political gridlock on pressing issues for the United States and its citizens. Gridlock is progressively getting worse because of things like gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the manipulation of boundaries of an electoral area so it can favor one particular party or class more than the other. This results in most

Politics in the United States is a complex structure that is comprised of many systems. While most of these systems appear to work well, there are a few that are broken. A perfect example of a broken system is the district boundaries and the likelihood of gerrymandering. Multiple states across the country are subjected to gerrymandering, which is the act of dividing a county into election districts that provide one political party with an unfair advantage over the other. Gerrymandering is used to help or prevent a particular demographic from gaining adequate representation. In Florida, for example, there is controversy over Congressional District 5, which extends from Jacksonville down to Orlando in a way that creates a “minority-majority” district.

Without a certain degree of control over the governmental levels of power, blacks end up disproportionately dependent on white-created legislation and white administration of those laws (Pohlmann, 219). The potential dangers of gerrymandering involves the distribution of blacks into districts where they are diluted into a minority or the creation of districts where blacks are an excessive majority so that an overall district majority white can be achieved (Thornburgh v. Gingles, 31). These redistricting plans severely hindered blacks ability to vote for a representative of their choice (1). However, in order to stem the progress of racially discriminating gerrymandering, these districts are examined based on the impact and district composition

Riker argues that these bold uses of gerrymandering are made possible, and even encouraged, by two landmark Supreme Court Cases. Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims were two similar cases from the 1960’s that addressed the unequal representation caused by the unwillingness of politicians to adjust the electoral districts to accurately reflect the major population changes of the twentieth century.15 Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims forced Congress and state legislative bodies to correct this inaccurate political representation by mandating equally sized voting districts.16 In fact, Reynolds v. Sims went so far as to require a voting population difference of no more than ten percent between the largest and smallest electoral districts.17 Furthermore,

During the course of the past few decades, the United States of America faced hundreds of issues that impact the nation’s view of leadership. Some people of the United States believe that the issues that face America involves those in office, while others believe that the issue is structural. In the case of America today, there is a momentous structural difficulty in our voting system. Furthermore, the most distinct problem that the United States handles today is gerrymandering. Throughout this essay, it will be made clear that gerrymandering is the leading problem facing America today because it harms the equality of citizens.

The most quoted part of the declaration today is probably “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”- Preamble to the Declaration of Independence. It is mostly used for black lives matter or any feminist “peaceful protests”. How is this connected to gerrymandering? Well, the entire point of gerrymandering is to have the opposing parties votes not count as much, in 2012 Republicans used gerrymandering very well. This would drive the Democrats crazy, yes their votes didn't count as much. Yes, that is unconstitutional, many may argue that some parts of gerrymandering are ok, but that is false. All votes should count the

Yet, there are still cases that pop up every now and then. The Supreme Court has set up rules like compact and contiguous districts, physically adjoining districts, and the one-person, one-vote rule. That last one is most important because it affects everyone. Every person’s vote must equal the same. Even if district are redrawn to give more power to minorities, it is still giving an unfair because it lend strength towards the democratic party, to which minorities are more likely to vote. Gerrymandering is a threat to the weight that the average person’s vote carries and that is a threat to the fairness and unbiasedness of elections.

In the article, the author uses numerous facts, as well as quotes from experts who have elaborated on the subject as well. One quote said by Paul Smith was,“Partisan gerrymandering of this kind is worse now than anytime in recent memories.” This is significant because he is talking about how much the republicans have taken advantage of gerrymandering and have used it to their best interest.

America is a land of the free and the home of the brave. In our democracy the citizens choose the leaders, Right? Wrong. In the House of Representatives and state legislatures, a practice called gerrymandering has been prominent since the early 1800’s(Barasch). Gerrymandering nullifies Americans’ right to vote and lessens the leverage of racial minorities’ in the election of our congressman.

Racial gerrymandering is also a conflict to the XIV Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because the district maps in Virginia’s case favors whites over African-Americans, giving them more votes in legislation of districts. African Americans don’t have an equal representation because of how the districts were drawn. Although the African-American population in Virginia isn’t much compared to the white population, that does not mean that the number of African-Americans should consist of one commonwealth representative. This exemplifies how African-Americans’ chance to obtain such a political position in Virginia is unfair as a result of gerrymandering.

In 1842, Congress passed the Apportionment Act, which required congressional districts to be compact and equal in population (“Apportionment Legislation 1840 - 1880”). Although the law made an initial effort to curb gerrymandering, it failed to adequately define “compact.” Over a century later, in the 1962 court case Baker v. Carr, the Supreme Court ruled that congressional districts must have reasonable boundaries. The court further deemed redistricting issues to be justiciable, enabling federal courts to decide gerrymandering cases (“Baker v. Carr”). It wasn’t until the 1985 Davis v. Bandemer case that the Supreme Court ruled that manipulating district boundaries for political gains is unconstitutional (“Davis v. Bandemer”). However, the Supreme Court left unanswered one pivotal question: What are the standards for identifying and litigating a gerrymander? (Hess, 209). Although it is illegal, without a clear national standard for addressing gerrymandering, state legislatures get away with it in federal courts by exploiting the legal ambiguity surrounding the practice. Therefore, taking the power to redistrict away from state legislatures in the first place is the most viable

The Founding Fathers of the United States constitution also created constitutional principles that the United States gov’t and people should abide by. However, if people allow gerrymandering to happen, we as citizens, would be doing a deed that is extremely unconstitutional. According to the constitutional principles stated in the United States Constitution, the United States will always be a country that uses popular sovereignty. According to Dictionary.com, popular sovereignty is. “the doctrine that sovereign power is vested in the people and that those chosen to govern, as trustees of such power, must exercise it in conformity with the general will.” (Dictionary.com, Popular Sovereignty) This means that to decide on problems or large decisions, the majority vote of the people will always rule. However, with gerrymandering, the politicians will be violating the principle of popular sovereignty because they manipulate the districts so even if there are more votes for one party, the other party can win the majority of the districts, therefore winning the state. Another constitutional principle that gerrymandering violates from the US Constitution is the statement that everyone should have their own individual rights. The rights stated are that everyone has their rights to liberty, life, and the pursuit of happiness. One of the rights is liberty, meaning that there should be no government interference in people’s lives, their behavior, and their political views. However, when the government does gerrymander, they are interfering with our political views by not allowing our say to be counted

Our nation's reliance upon winner-take-all elections and single member districts for Congressional elections without national standards has left our voting process open to the abuses of unfair partisan gerrymandering. In the Partisan Gerrymandering simulation game I played, I found that it was more difficult to draw my party lines due to the fact there were many voters that were opposite of my political views. I really had to Gerrymander to win my districts, but I did in the best interests of my constituents (or at least that’s what my created politician would think!). The Court ruling on my plan stated that I did not meet compactness laws but it was still approved. As far as the current laws on gerrymandering, six justices in 2006 produced 123 pages of opinions, without any five of them able to agree on how to define an unconstitutional gerrymander. Politicians of both parties said that the ruling over the 2003 Congressional

Gerrymandering is the use of redrawing certain districts and manipulating the boundaries allowing a political advantage to one’s party and the other a disadvantage. This process occurs every ten years as new political candidates run to be a government official ( Fan 737 ). It started in 1812 where Governor Gerry redrew the district lines of Massachusetts, giving his party an advantage. That is how Gerrymandering got its name. Usually, the person who redraws the district goes after the urban areas because of how populated they are compared to rural areas. This is not good for the United States because of many reasons; Gerrymandering create districts that are confusing to voters because of the weird shapes and sizes, claims of the party can be contradictory, and the fact that gerrymandering is around, makes the people believe that the candidates are corrupted and running the right the vote. ( RULEY 785 ).