Courtesy of the Washington Post:
In his State of the Union speech, President Obama called on lawmakers and the public to take a number of steps "to change the system to reflect our better selves" for "a better politics." The top item on that list was to end partisan gerrymandering: "we have to end the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters, and not the other way around," Obama said.
In most states, state legislatures draw the district boundaries that determine how many delegates the state sends to the U.S. Congress, as well as the general partisan make-up of that delegation. State legislatures are partisan beasts, and if one party is in control of the process they can draw boundaries to give themselves a numeric advantage over their opponents in Congress.
As you can see from the chart up above if we passed laws against gerrymandering the progressives would have a much fairer shot and would more than likely control both the House and the Senate.
And if the conservatives were so confident that the country is mostly made up of like minded voters they would support doing away with gerrymandering as well.
But instead they fight the idea tooth and nail.
Gee, it couldn't be that they're afraid of fair elections now could it?
Just a reminder as to what this country would look like without gerrymandering.
3:10 AM
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