Thread by @fenrir_71

So redistricting season is almost upon us and in light of the #WeThePeopleAct I thought maybe a primer on gerrymandering might be in order.

Unusually for me we're not gonna do a ton of history here, I just think it's important for folks to know some of the process.
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In a nutshell the Constitutionally mandated census is how we figure out how many seats each party gets in Congress, & the state houses.

This process used to be pretty anodyne until MA passed a law in 1812 that entrenched the Democratic-Republican party's power in the state.
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The governor of MA at the time, Elbridge Gerry, signed this bill into law against his wishes, yet he has been attached to this highly undemocratic process ever since. There was blame cast upon him in every East Coast paper at the time.

Perhaps you've seen this old cartoon?
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What this means to us though is that gerrymandering & redistricting are two completely different animals: one is partisan and one is not.

Some states have non partisan redistricting panels but most do not, which leaves the door open to much chicanery.
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Project Red State in 2010 is a perfect example of gerrymandering. The GOP capitalized on the racist backlash to a black president and gained control of an unprecedented amount of state houses.

These victories enabled the GOP tp pick their own voters...
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...which is about as undemocratic as it sounds.

See the census enables lawmakers to determine a huge amount of info about us, mostly for a good reason: apportionment of funds. But it also enables them to split us up into districts favorable to their parties.
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This happens in two primary ways: cracking and packing.

Cracking is splitting an opposing party's base into districts that are favorable to your party. For example, the GOP likes to split up urban districts into rural districts to dilute the voting power of dems in cities.
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So let's take a state like WI. Like most urban areas Milwaukee votes democratic. Cracking splits the city's districts up and inserts them into suburban areas, traditionally (until 2020) GOP strongholds. For instance, instead of five districts in the city you might get three.
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Packing on the other hand is cramming all of the opposing party's voters into as few districts as possible. Again WI provides a great example for this. As we see in this map even when WI voters overwhelmingly vote for dems they still end up with a GOP run state.
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The reason this chicanery works is because how many districts there are is actually more important than how many voters there are. It's a bug in the system of representative democracy. And when states lose seats another state has to pick up the slack.
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What's the solution here?

Quite frankly it's the #WeThePeopleAct. In my humble opinion one of its most important provisions is the mandating of nonpartisan redistricting panels nationwide, in every state, full stop.
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Not only does it make the system more fair for all of us and reduce the minority rule we suffer from, it will drastically reduce the white supremacy inherent in the current way we do things. Because reducing urban votes is just legalized Jim Crow, and that's not hyperbole.
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So call your reps & senators and make your will known. We desperately need the #WeThePeopleAct or the authoritarian personality death cult that is the GOP will succeed in entrenching themselves not just for another ten years, but indefinitely.

Let's save America.

<fen>

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