Assignment 7- Congress

Shylene Mejia

Class: POL 166

Professor: Barry Murdaco

Lehman College

Assignment 7- Congress 

          The assigned reading for the week of 11/07/15 were Christopher Ingraham May 2014 Washington Post Newspaper articles “America’s Most Gerrymandered Congressional Districts”  and “What 60 years of Political Gerrymandering Looks Like”.  Ingraham’s  in these article addressed the practice of  gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is  explained in the articles to be congressional district are redrawn to manipulate the boundaries of an electoral constituency  in a way it is in favor of a group either a political party or economic class. In “What 60 years of Political Gerrymandering Looks Like”, he states :

              “What does all this mean? It means states can actually control the extent of

              gerrymandering. Take New York, for example. It's the one state among the 

             eight that has shown a meaningful decrease in the level of gerrymandering 

             across multiple congressional terms. New York also has also set up an independent

              advisory commission that recommends congressional and state redistricting plans

             to the state legislature. This commission was set up in 1978, and shortly thereafter

              the level of gerrymandering in the state peaked and has been declining ever since.”

            I am in agreement with New York state setting up independent advisory commission to provide recommendation when is time to redraw the district. The oversight is necessary when power and influence is at stake. The act of gerrymandering when used for its intended purpose is one of good. As a minority population does not want to end up with their voices not being heard in a district; therefore, is preferable to have a district that doesn’t look geometrical but have people in them with a similar cause.

            I choose this passage to review because it highlights a solution for the troubles associated with gerrymandering. If gerrymandering is not utilized as supposed to and is used to ring election of house of representatives, then it is an assault to our “democracy”.  I see it necessary to have oversight of leaders redrawing congress district. The oversight is needed to assess the items pointed out by Seth Masket from the Pacific Standard, in the article “equal population size, absence of racial discrimination, compactness and contiguity of districts, preservation of county or municipal boundaries and preservation of communities of interest”. There is hope that other states will look at the initiates being carried forward in NY.

References

Ingraham, C. (2014, May 15). America’s most gerrymandered congressional districts. Retrieved            November 7, 2015, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/05/15/americas-most-gerrymandered-congressional-districts/

Ingraham, C. (2014, May 21). What 60 years of political gerrymandering looks like. Retrieved             November 7, 2015, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/05/21/what-60-years-of-political-gerrymandering-looks-like/