November 15, 2003
Gerrymandering
Here's a great stat that shows Republicans' false advantage in the house of representatives:Gore bested Bush in the 2000 popular vote. There are 435 congressional districts in the United States. Given that Gore beat Bush by over 500,000 votes, wouldn't you expect the congressional district split to at least be somewhat close?
In actuality, Gore carried only 196 congressional districts. Bush took 239.
Why would this be? Is it because there just happened to be many Gore voters that immediately after voting for Gore, decided to vote for a Republican to represent them in the House?
Not by that margin. The answer is because of gerrymandering, where a Republican state legislature "packs" a democratic district with a landslide of popular support, so as to give other districts a better of shot of going Republican in a closer vote. This is especially prevalent in the South, where they will pack a congressional district with enough African-Americans - often with very strange geographic boundary lines - so that their representive will commonly receive greater than 70% of the vote (meaning 20% of the district is packed in), while four other districts might go Republican by 52-48. In this hypothetical state, the state is actually 52% Democratic in population, but the congressional seats are held 4-1 by Republicans. It's happening all over the place, with the most recent riggings being in Colorado and Texas.