Viciedo 1 Ester Viciedo Professor POS1001 23 July 2020 Congressional Redistricting The United States Constitution requires congressional seats to be reapportioned among the states after each decennial census. All representatives to the U.S. House of Representatives, state legislatures, and many local offices are elected from districts. In order to achieve this task, the Supreme Court requires that each US House district have equal numbers of people, any state with more than one district must adjust its district lines. The process is known as “redistricting”, which is the redrawing of districts boundaries when a state has more representatives than districts. In addition to equalizing the population of districts, the main purpose of redistricting is to keep political units and communities within a single district, and avoid the drawing of boundaries for purposes of partisan advantage, gerrymandering or incumbent protection. Redistricting may sound like a complicated and boring process, and politicians would be taking advantages of those individuals who continue to think that way. It is the duty of society to become empowered by understanding what districts are and how they are drawn. It is fundamental that individuals get involved in the process because the quality of representation of districts in Congress relays on them. Politicians can decide which political party is likely to win in a certain district or state by cleverly drawing districts. The goal as society is to demystify redistricting so that politicians cannot get away with such behavior known as gerrymandering. 1 Viciedo 2 The effect of gerrymandering for incumbent is particularly advantageous, as incumbents are far more likely to be reelected under conditions of gerrymandering. The practice is intended to establish an unfair political advantage for a particular party or group. The gerrymandering behavior can subvert the democratic process when politicians select voters; and voters do not elect politicians. In addition to its use achieving desired electoral results, gerrymandering may be used to help or hinder a particular demographic, such as a political, ethnic, racial, linguistic, and religious groups. By moving geographic boundaries, the incumbent party packs opposition voters into a few districts to produce results favoring their party. Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves and to gain additional seats for their parties. The process of redistricting has negative connotation because it is sometimes associated with gerrymandering which is always considered a corruption of the democratic process. When district lines are drawn to favor or disadvantage a political party, meaningful representation is compromised, and community interests are sacrificed. A good redistricting process should help communities secure meaningful representation. Many states consider “communities of interest” when drawing their districts and that’s a good place to start. Community of interest is a term for groups of people who share common social, cultural, racial, economic, geographic, or other concerns. These groups are likely to have similar legislative interests as well, and that means they can benefit from common representation in the government. Other redistricting goals will be a transparent process, allowing communities to ask and give input. Participation of the society is important, since communities are the basic units of well-designed districts. Participation in community mapping exercises is fundamental for the redistricting process because citizens get together and jointly work on solutions. The drawing of a district’s 2 Viciedo 3 boundaries can be detrimental to its quality of representation, benefiting political parties rather than incumbents. The practice of manipulating district lines is so ingrained that the involvement of the society is fundamental. It is people duty to speak up, participate and get involved in the matter in order to have a fair redistricting process. 3 Viciedo 4 Works Cited LOWENTHAL, ALAN S. “The Ills of Gerrymandering and Independent Redistricting Commissions as the Solution.” Harvard Journal on Legislation, vol. 56, no. 1, Winter 2019, pp. 1–21. EBSCOhost. Rossiter, Kalyn M., et al. “Congressional Redistricting: Keeping Communities Together?” Professional Geographer, vol. 70, no. 4, Nov. 2018, pp. 609– 623. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00330124.2018.1443477. 4
