How did the Republicans gerrymander the congressional districts and when will we have an opportunity to fix it?

Districts are drawn every 10 years with the census data. The Republicans did really well in 2010 (way better than 2008 or 2012). So when the census was done, they controlled state legislatures, and could draw new districts. They managed to do it so well, they could keep the House and many state legislatures, even though they got crushed.

The Democrats do just as much gerrymandering as the republicans where they control the state legislatures.

This is horse crap on so many levels. It should be outlawed. We have districts in NYS called by animal names because they are so screwed up. How can anyone represent people like that?

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@DWW25921 Can’t let that pass. I’m not going to get into a pissing contest, but this is all Right Wing extremists controlling the House. No one in their right mind would ever do this to the federal workers, and still be getting paid and getting all their perks while other workers are tossed out of work.
Why did you delete your post?

State legislatures determine the boundaries of congressional districts for the US House of Representatives. In California, that process is done by a non-partisan commission after the census.

A little known fact is that a legislature can redraw congressional districts at any time they please. This occurred in Texas during a time that did not follow immediately upon the census data being received.

The Democrats were in power, drew the districts, and then the Republicans took over the legislature after the fact and redrew the lines. There was a law suit that went all the way to the US Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the Texas Republicans.

In the vast majority of states, the districts are drawn by partisans in the legislatures. It is not a fair system.

@Adirondackwannabe I answered the wrong question. That was meant for a question on the shut down and didn’t have anything to do with yours which referred to districts. The question wasn’t even on this site. Sorry.

I forgot to answer the second half of the question about when it can be changed.

Any time the Democrats organize themselves well enough on the state levels and take control of those legislatures, then it can be changed.

@Adirondackwannabe I actually hadn’t even planned on answering your question because I really don’t know much about the districts and how they are formed. I opened your question because I thought it was interesting. Anyway, I’ll be more careful next time.

@DWW25921 Hey, my apologies. I came off too strong. My bad.

@Adirondackwannabe I’m sorry I messed up your question I really didn’t mean to. I was following it cause it seemed interesting.

It was Judi’s question. It’s okay. It still works. Sorry Judi.

Hey, it’s social. We’re among friends. Want a cocktail?

Boodles Gin and Tonic for me. I’m buying for @DWW25921 too. And Judi, cheers.

I’ll have a long Island.

To my knowledge the Congressional districts are controlled by each state in its own State House. It’s not like “the evil Republicans” could reach out from Washington and control this on a state-by-state level.

I’m glad to see that @Hawaii_Jake has already responded correctly to this topic.

By the way, gerrymandering is as old as our country:

Elbridge Gerry + salamander; from the shape of an election district formed during Gerry’s governorship of Massachusetts
First Known Use: 1812 source

In California, we neatly stopped Gerrymandering and had new lines drawn, using physical features like rivers and mountains, and straight lines, rather than the awful jigjagged lines you used to see here.

@filmfann, yeah, but I’m still stuck with Kevin McCarthy

@Judi Too bad. I would love to have Kevin McCarthy as a representative. Anyone who was in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” would be an improvement.

See @Hawaii_Jake

He either did not go to public school, or when he did he stayed awake during Civics class.

The problem is not as simple as most here seem to think. First you have to understand why we have districts. It is to insure every constituency has a voice. Urban dwellers vs rural have different needs and priorities. They should each have a voice. Black or white deserve a voice. The districts should have approximately the same number of citizens and be contiguous. The voting rights act has in fact created many minority, majority districts. That is a district that the majority of voting age adults be of minority descent. That in itself skews the district and creates Gerrymandering to comply with the law.

The past couple of elections have created a new dynamic which Democrats see as an obvious example of gerrymandering. It’s not. In the past blacks were 60–70% democratic voters. With the advent of Obama they have turned to near 100%. Consequently a black majority district will go overwhelmingly to the democrats while other districts will maintain their more traditional split. For example, if you have three districts and each has 100,000 voters. one is a minority majority district (black). the black district goes overwhelmingly democratic with 75% of the votes while the other two are more balanced and go 55% republican. You end up with two Republicans and one democrat but the combined popular vote is 135, 000 for the Republicans and 165,000 for the Democrats. The democrats are arguing that the popular vote proves that at least two of those representatives should have been democrats and that the Republicans have gerrymandered the districts. But that’s not really the case. It is the unprecessidented shift in a single demographic that created the issue. And it is the Voting Rights Act, that democrats support, that will perpetuate it.

I’m not saying that Gerrymandering doesn’t exist. It does and it is common among both parties. The recent noise by the Democrats is not part of that issue.