Why Gerrymander?

How about ranked-choice voting for the state’s reps?

Photo by Zachary Keimig on Unsplash — The prompt was “torn fabric”

Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution states:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States….

States have historically assigned their representatives to districts, each of which elects its own representative. Parties have, however, drawn those districts in ways that advantage the party with the most power in the redistricting process. In Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court ruled that the courts may not interfere with the political act of partisan redistricting. With that assurance, Texas Republicans have decided to redraw their districts to create, they think, five new Republican seats. In response, and only as a response, Gov. Newsome of California wants to do something similar in California. Those two states are not likely the only ones to enter this tit for tat spiral.

In thinking about this problem, it occurred to me that “redistricting” is just silly. Why have districts at all if their purpose is not to allocate political power in a way that reflects the interests of the people of the state? Gerrymandered districts of the sort Texas is creating aren’t really “districts” at all. They are the product of computer algorithms made to look like districts…