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Essay on Congressman Steve Cohen

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As the current representative of the 9th district of Tennessee, Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen has emerged as a tactful candidate with goals in mind to help better the lives of his constituents through his representative style and his home-style. Theory I: Redistricting, Gerrymandering, and Candidate Emergence A congressional district is an electoral division of a state, electing and entitled to send one member to the United State House of Representatives. Districting is the initial set district, whereas redistricting is the process of drawing district boundaries after the decennial census and new population changes. Redistricting is a political process that affects the fortunes of incumbent House members, state legislators, …show more content…

Since then, gerrymandering has been used to gain partisan advantage and to shape the political projections of politicians and racial and ethnic groups. The two most common gerrymandering techniques include packing and cracking, disappointingly both waste valuable votes in doing so. Packing has both an offensive and defensive strategy. Offensively, packing is to fill a district with many voters of one type to create a safe seat; typically used in partisan gerrymandering. Defensively, packing is to compress voters of one type into as few districts as possible to dilute their influence elsewhere. However, cracking is to spread as many voters of one type into as many districts as possible to dilute their influence; typically used in racial gerrymandering. Partisan and Racial gerrymandering are two common forms of gerrymandering. Partisan gerrymandering is the manipulation of districts to increase members of a specific party by drawing district lines on the basis of party identification. Racial gerrymandering is drawing district lines on the basis of race; possibly leading to a majority-minority district. After the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment granting former slaves the right to vote, many southern states implemented a variety of methods to prevent the adoption of the new law. The Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 was the solution to the unfair methods implemented. It removed the

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