There is nothing in the Constitution that bans the act of Gerrymandering, so I do believe that it is constitutional, but that certainly does not make it an OK thing to do. Like I said before, I think the founders, among others, held the politicians to a higher standard and therefore did not expect something like this to happen.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Gerrymandering
The "Gerrymander" law was established in order to ensure that the state in its entirety is represented in the House of Reps, but instead it turned into a political battle for who can tweak the system to make it easiest for himself. I agree that this is one of the unintended consequences of the law in that the law must have been passed assuming that the politicians would hold themselves to a higher standard. The fact that the congressman have been able to play with the system once a decade to ensure reelection makes sense of the fact that Congress has become more polarized and less moderate. If the district lines were drawn at random, as normal shapes (as the state borders are drawn) I believe that the candidates for congress would be more inclined to stay moderate to have to appeal to a more broad demographic, and it would also give any possible challengers a decent chance to win.
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I agree with you on the founders. I believe that they thought all of the them would be very patriotic and want to be righteous and stuff while building this new country. But no one could really expect all of the problems the new government would bring because people couldn't agree. Politicians back then were people who had a major roll in making the country. They had no idea what they were doing. Since the politicians today tend to have the gist of it already, they can bend the rules to fit their purposes. Ah the world has changed, and in politics, it never gets better. It just remains at a standstill. I liked your post. I agreed with the vast majority of it.
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