Gerrymandering - Definition and Examples in Politics

Gerrymandering is the act of drawing congressional, state legislative or other political boundaries to favor a political party or one particular candidate for elected office. The purpose of gerrymandering is to grant one party power over another by creating districts that hold dense concentrations of voters who are favorable to their policies. Impact The physical impact of gerrymandering can be seen on any map of congressional districts. Many boundaries zig and zag east and west, north and south across city, township and county lines as if for no reason at all. But the political impact is much more significant. Gerrymandering reduces the number of competitive congressional races across the United States by segregating like-minded voters from each other. Gerrymandering has become common in American politics and is often blamed for the gridlock in Congress, polarization of the electorate and disenfranchisement among voters. President Barack Obama, speaking in his final State of the Union address in 2016, called on both the Republican and Democratic parties to end the practice. â€Å"If we want a better politics, it’s not enough just to change a congressman or change a senator or even change a president. We have to change the system to reflect our better selves. I think weve got to end the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters, and not the other way around. Let a bipartisan group do it.† In the end, though, most cases of gerrymandering are legal.   Harmful Effects Gerrymandering  often leads to disproportionate politicians from one party being elected to office. And it creates districts of voters who are socioeconomically, racially or politically alike so that members of Congress are safe from potential challengers and, as a result, have little reason to compromise with their colleagues from the other party.   The process is marked by secrecy, self-dealing and backroom logrolling among elected officials. The public is largely shut out of the process, wrote  Erika L. Wood, the director of the Redistricting Representation Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. In the 2012 congressional elections, for example, Republicans won 53 percent of the popular vote but carried three out of four House seats in states where they oversaw redistricting. The same was true for Democrats. In states where they controlled the process of drawing congressional district boundaries, they captured seven out of 10 seats with only 56 percent of the popular vote. Any Laws Against It? The U.S. Supreme Court, ruling in 1964, called for a fair and equitable distribution of voters among congressional districts, but its ruling dealt mostly with the actual number of voters in each and whether they were rural or urban, not the partisan or racial makeup of each: Since the achieving of fair and effective representation for all citizens  is concededly the basic aim of legislative apportionment, we conclude that the Equal Protection Clause guarantees the opportunity for equal participation by all voters in the election of state legislators. Diluting the weight of votes because of place of residence impairs basic constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment just as much as invidious discriminations based upon factors such as race  or economic status. The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965  took on the issue of using race as a factor in drawing congressional districts, saying it is illegal to deny minorities their constitutional right  Ã¢â‚¬Å"to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.† The law  was designed to end discrimination against black Americans, particularly those in the South after the Civil War. A state may take race into account as one of several factors when drawing district lines—but without a compelling reason, race cannot be the predominant reason for a district’s shape, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. The Supreme Court followed up in 2015 by saying states could form independent, nonpartisan commissions to redraw legislative and congressional boundaries. How It Happens Attempts to gerrymander happen only once a decade and soon after years ending in a zero. That’s because states are required by law to redraw all 435 congressional and legislative boundaries based on the decennial census every 10 years. The redistricting process begins soon after the U.S. Census Bureau completes its work and begins sending data back to the states. Redistricting must be completed in time for the 2012 elections. Redistricting is one of the most important processes in American politics. The way congressional and legislative boundaries are drawn determines who wins federal and state elections, and ultimately which political party holds the power in making crucial policy decisions. Gerrymandering is not hard,  Sam Wang, the founder of Princeton Universitys Election Consortium, wrote in 2012. He continued: The core technique is to jam voters likely to favor your opponents into a few throwaway districts where the other side will win lopsided victories, a strategy known as packing. Arrange other boundaries to win close victories, cracking opposition groups into many districts. Examples The most concerted effort to redraw political boundaries to benefit a political party in modern history happened after the 2010 census. The project, orchestrated by Republicans using sophisticated software and about $30 million, was called  REDMAP, for Redistricting Majority Project. The program began with successful efforts to regain majorities in key states including  Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, and Wisconsin. Republican strategist Karl Rove wrote in The Wall Street Journal before the midterm elections in 2010: The political world is fixated on whether this years elections will deliver an epic rebuke of President Barack Obama and his party. If that happens, it could end up costing Democrats congressional seats for a decade to come. He was right. The Republican victories in statehouses across the country allowed the GOP in those states to then control the redistricting process taking effect in 2012 and shape congressional races, and ultimately policy, until the next census in 2020.   Who is Responsible? Both major political parties are responsible for the misshapen legislative and congressional districts in the United States. In most cases, the process of drawing congressional and legislative boundaries is left to state legislatures. Some states impanel special commissions. Some redistricting commissions are expected to resist political influence and act independently from the parties and the elected officials in that state. But not all. Here’s a breakdown of who is responsible for redistricting in each state: State legislatures: In 30 states, the elected state lawmakers are responsible for drawing their own legislative districts and in 31 states the boundaries for the congressional districts in their states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law. The governors in most of those states have the authority to veto the plans. The states that allow their legislatures to perform the redistricting are: AlabamaDelaware (Legislative districts only)FloridaGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaine (Congressional districts only)MarylandMassachusettsMinnesotaMissouri (Congressional districts only)North CarolinaNorth Dakota (Legislative districts only)NebraskaNew HampshireNew MexicoNevadaOklahomaOregonRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth Dakota (Legislative districts only)TennesseeTexasUtahVirginiaWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming (Legislative districts only) Independent commissions: These apolitical panels are used in four states to redraw legislative districts. To keep politics and the potential for gerrymandering out of the process, state lawmakers and public officials are prohibited from serving on the commissions. Some states also prohibit legislative staffers and lobbyists, as well. The four states that employ independent commissions are: ArizonaCaliforniaColoradoMichigan Advisory commissions: Four states use and advisory commission consisting of a mix of legislators and non-legislators to draw up congressional maps that are then presented to the legislature for a vote. Six states use advisory commissions to draw state legislative districts. The states that use advisory commissions are: ConnecticutIowaMaine (Legislative districts only)New YorkUtahVermont (Legislative districts only) Politician commissions: Ten states create panels made up of state lawmakers and other elected officials to redraw their own legislative boundaries. While these states take redistricting out of the hands of the entire legislature, the process is highly political, or partisan, and often results in gerrymandering districts. The 10 states that use politician commissions are: Alaska (Legislative districts only)Arkansas (Legislative districts only)HawaiiIdahoMissouriMontana (Legislative districts only)New JerseyOhio (Legislative districts only)Pennsylvania (Legislative districts only)Washington Why Is It Called Gerrymandering? The term gerrymander is derived from the name of a Massachusetts governor in the early 1800s, Elbridge Gerry. Charles Ledyard Norton, writing in the 1890 book  Political Americanisms, blamed Gerry for signing into a law a bill in 1811 readjusting the representative districts so as to favor the Democrats and weaken the Federalists, although the last named party polled nearly two-thirds of the votes cast. Norton explained the emergence of the epithet gerrymander this way: A fancied resemblance of a map of the districts thus treated led [Gilbert] Stuart, the painter, to add a few lines with his pencil, and to say to Mr. [Benjamin] Russell, editor of the Boston Centinel, That will do for a salamander. Russell glanced at it: Salamander! said he, Call it a Gerrymander! The epithet took at once and became a Federalist war-cry, the map caricature being published as a campaign document. The late William Safire, a political columnist and linguist for  The New York Times, made note of the words pronunciation in his 1968 book  Safires New Political Dictionary: Gerrys name was pronounced with a hard  g; but because of the similarity of the word with jerrybuilt (meaning rickety, no connection with gerrymander) the letter  g  is pronounced as  j.

Exploring The Anglo-Saxon Hero - 2467 Words

What is a hero? Perhaps it should be rephrased: who is a hero? Of course, it now becomes easy to answer – we can say Odysseus, as he didn’t just assist in the victory at Troy, but fought the gods with his longing for his home; or Beowulf, who fought of the terrible monsters in Hrothgar’s kingdom as well as his own; or Byrhtnoth, who died while defending the land he loved. Clearly, it is easy to list off the heroes in these ancient poems. However, why is this so, why can we so easily identify heroes without consciously recognizing the clues that lead us to those conclusions? While this question may remain unanswerable without understanding psychology, it is still possible to understand what makes a hero tick – his set of features†¦show more content†¦143). By telling Wiglaf to bring the treasure to him, Beowulf is showing the audience that despite his imminent departure from the mortal world, he still possesses a greed for treasure. While some argue that Beowulf is merely trying to understand the fate of his kingdom based on its newfound wealth, the desire for treasure is nonetheless childish – telltale signs of selfish attributes in Beowulf’s character. The story of the Volsung family contains the tale of Sigmund in The Saga of the Volsungs. Sigmund is also a mythological character, due to his immediate relation to the mythical Volsung family, just like Beowulf. His actions, such as becoming a wolf (just like Beowulf) with his incestuous son Sinfjotli in the forest, embarking on an adventure to fight hunters, are clearly impossible without the mythological or legendary setting. For this reason, we classify Sigmund as being mythological, since he could not have been real, at least based this description. Similar to Beowulf, audiences can observe crucial, dark characteristics of Sigmund that distinguish him. His legendary feats are just that – legendary. However, they also possess negative qualities. 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JFK Inaugural Address free essay sample

America in the 1960‘s were very vigorous due to Civil Rights, the Vietnam war, and the country slowly evolving as a nation. Presidency was very a important attribute to the country, so whoever was elected at that time, he needed to be efficient. John F. Kennedy was the perfect candidate. He was one of the best presidents in history so far. Kennedy administrated the New Frontier in outer space, saved the world from a thermonuclear war by signing the Nuclear Test Ban Theory, and sign the Peace Corps to promote world peace and friendship. On January 20, 1961, John F.Kennedy delivered one of the most inspirational and uplifting inaugural addresses in U. S. history. Kennedy calmed fears from the Civil war and rise of the Soviet power by introducing change and promoting peace throughout the nation for the benefit of the whole world. John F. Kennedy used many rhetorical devices including ethos, pathos, and logos to draw the attention and capture the emotion of the entire nation. We will write a custom essay sample on JFK Inaugural Address or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The decade of the 1960‘s was very socially separated. It was impacted by disagreements about the Vietnam War. The Civil Rights movement was also majorly impacting politics at that time. Kennedy was elected in the midst of these social climates, which came with big responsibilities. Being that he served as a lieutenant during World War II and was apart of the House of Representatives, he was ideal for the job. In his inaugural speech, he evokes people emotionally by concerning every citizen as an individual. He talked about the future while using the past as an example. He tried to focus on uniting the country and staying as one nation, which was appointing to Civil Rights. Although he didn’t openly speak out against segregation, he was a believer in Civil Rights, because he was a strong believer of the Peace Corps. Kennedy calls people to action in his speech. He says, â€Å"Let both sides join in creating a new endeavor,† which means that he doesn’t plan on himself and the government creating a new era alone. Many presidents have made speeches about world peace and America uniting, but in his inaugural speech, John F. Kennedy appointed each person as an individual to make themselves better. He believed that if each person were to make themselves better, that the whole nation would unite as a whole. He uses ethos to prove himself as trustworthy.