Gerrymandering Reform

It’s hard to believe that gerrymandering has been around since the early years of our country, but it has.  Gerrymandering is the strategic splitting up of districts, no matter how wonky the shape may be, in an effort to ensure that party members win their elections.  As long as politicians are drawing up their own districts, they win time and time again with little competition.  Some of the bizarre-looking district lines not only make a person cock their head to the side, but it seems to be indicative of a blatant skewing of our democracy.  When politicians are able to create these safe zones, power is taken away from the people.  With gerrymandering in place, politicians are not as accountable as they otherwise might be.  The most egregious offender appears to be North Carolina with its 12^th district being drawn in a way that is 120 miles long but only 20 miles wide at its widest point.

If districts were drawn up by an independent agency, it would allow for more accurate representation and help to build trust within the political system.  Arizona and California are currently the only two with an independent redistricting commission.  The rest of the country should follow their lead. There is a clear conflict of interest for the group of people redrawing the district lines to be the same group who will be running for reelection under those lines.

Even James Madison, a founding father of the Constitution, was targeted by opponents when redrawing district lines in an attempt to prevent Madison from getting reelected to the House of Representatives.  Luckily for Madison it didn’t work, but it did cause Madison to be wary of elected officials manipulating the system to draw lines for their own benefit.

In the article “No More Gerrymandering” from the The Harvard Crimson, Christina Teodorescu summed up gerrymandering quite well by stating, "At its core, it is effectively a form of disenfranchisement.  Thousands if not millions of voters are packed into strategic districts in such a way that in each election cycle their votes are rendered obsolete.  Among its many other undemocratic effects, gerrymandering gives a decisive advantage to incumbents and increases partisan polarity:  Representatives who do not have to worry about reelection are far less motivated to negotiate or work with the opposition to enact constructive legislation."

The result of gerrymandering is that “representation” does not in fact properly represent the citizens.  While it may not be the cause of gridlock in Congress, it certainly exacerbates the extreme polarity.  A neutral independent commission is the best body of people to be drawing up district lines in order to ensure that the voters end up choosing their representatives, not the other way around.

In my classmate Ashley Underwood’s blog post “Contraception Should Be Covered by Insurance,” she makes great points about the benefits of contraception and the reasons it should be covered.  She points out several medical benefits in addition to the obvious benefit of preventing unwanted pregnancies.  Ashley stresses that defunding Planned Parenthood would be a horrible idea since it assists many women in caring for their health.  Some extremists have cast Planned Parenthood in a light as if it’s an immoral institution because it happens to perform abortions as well as all the other health assistance it provides.  This self-righteous view is hurting more than helping.  It seems a bit ironic that so many of these people who want to defund Planned Parenthood are the same people who want to make cuts to welfare programs.

So let’s say they get their way and abortions can’t be obtained and birth control becomes unaffordable for so many.  Then what?  There will be countless people in even more dire need of assistance from the government than there already are.  I think the people who want to defund Planned Parenthood ought to sit in a CPS court for a week and see all the resources that go into helping children whose parents don’t take care of them.

Ashley did a great job laying out various reasons why a woman might choose to be on contraceptives.  Some women want to pursue education and a career before starting a family.  A woman who makes the decision that now is not the time in her life to bring a child into the world should be applauded for her wise decision, not penalized for it.  She should be admired for wanting to establish herself with an income that she can count and provide for her child with rather than having hurdles put in the way that will increase her chances of having to rely on government assistance.

One would think the government would want to make it easier for people to help themselves, not harder.  One would think the government would want to have contraceptives covered by insurance to decrease chances of needing government assistance.  Ashley sums it up well that having a child should be a choice every woman gets to make and the affordability of contraceptives is important.