What is gerrymandering?

[BIG Sean]

Hi,

On the DLC thread is said:

"Ban partisan gerrymandering"

I'm not familier with that term.

Thanks

[shoelace414]

1. redrawing congressional districts

so the representive picks his voters and not the other way around.

[OrlandoGator]

2. Cutting up a voting district specifically to win elections.

For example, including neighborhoods of a certain race.

[Mortos]

3. Gerrymandering

...is politically advantageous redistricting of voting districts. Something done in Texas and other states to insure republican victories. Basically, they cut districts up so one side, politically has an advantage. The republicans have mastered it and have benefitted greatly from it.

[SouthernDem2004]

6. Actually, it goes both ways. It is done by Democrats and Republicans.

Lets not mislead the OP.

[babylonsister]

4. Gerrymandering:

ger·ry·man·der    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (jr-mndr, gr-)
tr.v. ger·ry·man·dered, ger·ry·man·der·ing, ger·ry·man·ders 
To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to
give unfair advantage to one party in elections.

n. 
The act, process, or an instance of gerrymandering. 
A district or configuration of districts differing widely in
size or population because of gerrymandering. 


[After Gerry, Elbridge + (sala)mander(from the shape of an
election district created while Gerry was governor of
Massachusetts).] 
Word History: “An official statement of the returns of voters
for senators gives twenty nine friends of peace, and eleven
gerrymanders.” So reported the May 12, 1813, edition of the
Massachusetts Spy. A gerrymander sounds like a strange
political beast, which it is, considered from a historical
perspective. This beast was named by combining the word
salamander, “a small lizardlike amphibian,” with the last name
of Elbridge Gerry, a former governor of Massachusettsa state
noted for its varied, often colorful political fauna. Gerry
(whose name, incidentally, was pronounced with a hard g,
though gerrymander is now commonly pronounced with a soft g)
was immortalized in this word because an election district
created by members of his party in 1812 looked like a
salamander. According to one version of gerrymander's coining,
the shape of the district attracted the eye of the painter
Gilbert Stuart, who noticed it on a map in a newspaper
editor's office. Stuart decorated the outline of the district
with a head, wings, and claws and then said to the editor,
“That will do for a salamander!” “Gerrymander!” came the
reply. The word is first recorded in April 1812 in reference
to the creature or its caricature, but it soon came to mean
not only “the action of shaping a district to gain political
advantage” but also “any representative elected from such a
district by that method.” Within the same year gerrymander was
also recorded as a verb.

EDIT TO ADD: I have no idea why everything is crossed out; any
suggestions why that happened?

[JHB]

12. Check your post for HTML code...

...particularly the code "[s]" (strikethrough) just
after "...seantors give..."

[babylonsister]

17. Thanks, both of you! nt

[Endangered Specie]

16. Click the box that says

"Check here if you want to format your message in plain text. Use for posting code snippets."

[OrlandoGator]

5. FYI: www.m-w.com and en.wikipedia.org. Great for this kind of thing.

I'm a Wikipedia addict.

[DUgosh]

7. In Texas we call it Perrymandering

[acmejack]

8. See Texas 2004

Democrats -5 Congressional seats, Cons +5. Thanks to Tom Delay and the illegal campaign contributions in the Texas Legislature races that year.

[AuntieM1957]

18. oh, no!

:cry:

[KarenS]

9. It's falling asleep one night with Mark Udall as my Rep and

waking up with Marilynn Musgrave instead!!!

:puke:

[King Coal]

10. It's bohunk for "killing Germans".

[newportdadde]

11. Some Rep in Texas covers like 5 counties now.

I remember seeing the breakdown but basically they took this persons district and then streched it west to east I believe and made it very narrow and wide over some insane area like through 5 different counties.

As I recall he kept his seat but it cost him a fortune, maybe someone else has more details.

[sam sarrha]

13. in Texas they ran a 6 inch strip from a neighborhood in Austin to El Paso

down the middle of a road over 400 miles to engulf several democratic neighborhoods into a very large Republican area in Austin. that way the Demacrats lost 7 congressional seats and any hope of having a representative in an Presidential electoral college vote. so when parts of El Paso voted they were electing congressmen and senators from Austin, Austin was so broken up that it did not even have its own congressman.

Redistricting is allowed every 10 years by the state constitution, however the RepugNuts do it every 2 years and the stuffed judges go along with it.

the democrats fled the state to eliminate a Quorum vote. I think it was Tom DeLay that called the Homeland security office and had the FFA find out what plane they were on so he could have the Texas Rangers go to Oklahoma and arrest them and bring them back co they could CRAM the Bill thru.

The Texas Rangers told DeLay to F himself, they had no jurisdiction in Oklahoma... and arrest them for WHAT... not showing up for work, and expressing their First Amendment rights.???

ome Texas legislature woman got a job at a Truck Stop as a waitress so she could hear what the working man has to say about what was going on during the boycot.

[Walt Starr]

14. Here's a map of gerrymandering

Pre-gerrmandering:

http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/static/pdf/planc01151m.pdf

Post gerrymandering:

http://congdistdata.tamu.edu/USCongressionalDistricts.pdf

[BiggJawn]

15. The Indiana 4th District.

Represented by-gosh!- Steve Buyer!


All the way from corn country to limestone country. I don't recall what kind of pork ol' Steve is bringing the folks down south, but he's doing a bang-up job at home in Monticello....