Defining Electoral Districts Based on Population and Geography

Defining Electoral Districts Based on Population and Geography

            The United States needs to change the way we define electoral districts.  Our current process of politically based gerrymandering is not representative of the pragmatic center that most Americans occupy, disenfranchising many Americans turning our democracy into a spectators sport.  Politically based gerrymandering also allows ideologues and people on the extreme ends of the political spectrum to get elected.  Politically based gerrymandering also creates incentives for parties in power to move towards being ideological pure and hinders effective compromise. The United States needs to change the ways individual states define political districts.  Each state should adopt a non-partisan districting committee comprised of individuals without connections to a political party and who are experts in demography and geography.  Political districts should be defined by demographic and geographic characteristics, not upon political considerations.

            Our current system of politically based gerrymandering groups likeminded people together in order to create districts that are electorally safe for a particular political party.  With relatively safe districts skewed to one political side of the aisle or the other, political candidates do not have to moderate their message to appeal to a wide range of voters.  They can narrow their message to a specific group of people.  If a particular gerrymandering district is very liberal or very conservative, any candidate will have to be either very liberal or very conservative in order to be elected by ideologically pure and narrow voters.  In this type of electoral climate only ideologues and those that appeal to ideology over pragmatic solutions are elected.  This produces the phenomena of ideologically pure and extreme members of Congress.  These ideologically pure members of Congress do not feel compelled to compromise and reach across the aisle because they will not suffer any negative electoral effects of doing so.  In actuality their constituents will reward them for not compromising and staying ideologically pure.  The current politically based gerrymandering system creates elected public servants who are beholden to ideology over pragmatic effective solutions to the problems United States citizens are currently confronting.  It seems plausible that unless we change the way we define electoral districts, the political divide, impasse, and lack of meaningful legislative progress in Congress will not abate.  We must change the way we define our electoral districts.

            Each state should create an independent non-partisan electoral districting committee comprised of non-politically affiliated experts in demographics and geography.  Political considerations should not be considered in regards to drawing electoral districts.  The distribution of people with respect for demographics and geography should dictate how political districts are formed.  Viewing many current political districts on a map can be comical.  Political districts that encompass homes on one side of a street and then seemingly arbitrarily jump to other side of the street are unfortunately common. Many electoral districts appear like jagged shapes from a kaleidoscope due to the political criteria which they have been defined.  These politically gerrymandered districts make it more difficult for voters to determine in which district they live and vote.  The non-partisan electoral districting committee should consider demographic and geographic distribution of the population only when defining electoral districts.  Using these criteria, electoral districts will tend to elect more moderate pragmatic leaders from both parties.  Districts will be much more neat and orderly making it much easier for voters to determine which electoral district they occupy. 

            Using non-partisan electoral districting committees comprised of politically unaffiliated experts in demography and geography will do much to reduce the hold ideology has on the elected public servants in the United States as well as provide a greater likelihood of pragmatic solutions to the problems confronting the United States.