Sunday, November 24, 2013

Is gerrymandering good or bad? Why?

This is, to some degree, a matter of opinion.  My own view is that gerrymandering is a bad thing.  I believe that it makes our political system more partisan and more divided.


Gerrymandering is the process of drawing political electoral districts in ways that are meant to help the political party that is doing the drawing.  Typically, this means drawing districts in such a way that your own political party gets more seats in the...

This is, to some degree, a matter of opinion.  My own view is that gerrymandering is a bad thing.  I believe that it makes our political system more partisan and more divided.


Gerrymandering is the process of drawing political electoral districts in ways that are meant to help the political party that is doing the drawing.  Typically, this means drawing districts in such a way that your own political party gets more seats in the legislature.  With this definition in mind, we can see that gerrymandering is something that is done for partisan gain and not for the good of our country.


In our society as it exists today, gerrymandering is particularly negative because it contributes to the hyper-partisanship that is so harmful to our country.  The parties gerrymander electoral districts, making sure that as many seats as possible are “safe” for their party.  This means that fewer and fewer legislators have to run in “swing” districts where they have to appeal to people of both parties.  Instead, the majority of our legislators run in one-party districts where their best path to success is to become more partisan and extreme.  This is harming our country badly (at least in my view).


It is hard for me to see any good in gerrymandering.  It is a process that is done in order to rig the political process to help the party that is doing it.  Doing this is selfish and (in my view) unethical and it results in a more partisan and less unified country. 

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