The Pros And Cons Of Gerrymandering

Words: 682
Pages: 3

Gerrymandering is something that I do not agree with at all. It is defined as, “Manipulating the political districts to rig the outcome of elections to favor one political party over another.” ("What is Gerrymandering?"). This means dividing up districts into crazy, abnormal lines which sometimes don't even make since on how they have been divided. This idea came from a founding father named Elbridge Gerry. He was the fifth vice president as well as the governor of Massachusetts. Gerry was the first to sign a bill that created an abnormal district designed to elect Democratic Republicans over the Federalists in 1812 (Donnelly). Gerrymandering is a legal action, but I believe it is very unfair. Gerrymandering and redistricting are two similar but different ideas. Redistricting is the drawing of legislative district boundary lines after each ten year census, while gerrymandering is the drawing of boundary lines for …show more content…
This session was held in order to redraw the districts; this wasn't the outcome. The House and the Senate could not come together and there was not progress ding made on the redrawing. This issue was then taken to the United States Supreme Court for a redrawing to be made. In 2004 there was a case Vieth v. Jubelirer, about Pennsylvania. They lost two representatives which resulted in a redrawing. Pennsylvania had the Republican majority and was redrawn to favor Republicans over Democrats. Vieth was a Pennsylvania resident and was also a democrat (Vieth). He argued that the redrawing was unconstitutional, but was denied by a lower court. Overall, in my opinion, I feel as though gerrymandering should be unconstitutional. It is definitely not fair to those party's who are not the majority just because they didn't get to draw their districts the way they intended. I believe that the United States Supreme Court should be involved by