Monday, October 07, 2013

Gerrymandering. Didn't the courts used to step in and stop that when it went too far?

One hears that the gerrymandering of voting districts has gotten so bad that districts are either solid red or solid blue. There are few districts with real races anymore. Politicians from the districts are becoming so polarized that they don't work together and even don't speak to one another for the most part. Gerrymandering is usually done by state legislatures as they apportion congressional and other districts in their states. In the past, I heard of several times where courts stopped the gerrymandering and ordered a better way to divide up the districts more randomly. Courts can take that power away from the politicians and appoint demographers (population specialists) and other types of folks to redistricting commissions. Now the problem with gerrymandering is so bad, I wonder where are the courts today? They need to put a stop to this in each state.

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