Gerrymandering

In recent years, our nation has seen an unfortunate rise in Gerrymandering, a practice where lawmakers redraw congressional maps to benefit their political party. As congressional districts across the country begin to resemble abstract art, America must take a long look in the mirror and decide what we want our future to look like.

In Tennessee, a republican legislature is attempting to do this to the city of Memphis. As can be seen, districts have been drawn across the state in order to disperse the democratic vote that Memphis would have had. This is projected to aid republicans greatly in the upcoming elections by giving them an extra seat in the house. 

In Illinois, Democrats have done something similar. As you can see in this congressional map, democrats of gerrymandered a winding strip of Illinois together across the state in order to bring more democratic voters together and give themself another seat.

This practice is problematic because it undermines our country’s very soul: democracy. America is based on the ideal that our people get to choose our government, and when congressional maps are redrawn to maximize one party’s votes, it undermines the very principles that our country is built on. Elections are supposed to embody the will of the people, and electoral maps ought to be structured in such a way to support this. Both parties need to decide whether they will stand up for our democracy or continue to follow partisan interests in a desperate race to the bottom.