Gerrymandering

Alain Rengel Govt & Law
Mr. Maggio 2/13/12
Gerrymandering - Undemocratic Manipulation
Gerrymandering has long been debated whether or not it is a tactic of undemocraticmanipulation or practical politics. Gerrymandering is the deliberate rearrangement of the boundaries of congressional districts to influence the outcome of elections. Politicians redistrict to gain control fortheir party in the next election, allowing them to run government. In a thirst for power, politicians use gerrymandering to get the upper hand, allowing them to stay in power for long times.Gerrymandering is also unfair for targeting groups of people to lessen their political power. Therefore, gerrymandering is an unfair practice for benefiting incumbents and by how it's done.
Gerrymanderingis used to the advantage of incumbents. Incumbents are members who already in office. If their party holds control at the time, it can create distrcits that would benefit the incumbents in upcomingelections. As time goes on, voters familiarize themselves more with incumbents because they already who they are and what they have done. Then there will be less opposition and it would be hard forchallengers to beat incumbents. For example, in 2002, only four incumbents lost to new challengers - an all time low (Pack). Incumbents are able to stay in office due to gerrymandering, which preventschange in our Congress. Many officials might then stop trying or might be corrupt, knowing they have a secure position in Congress. Gerrymandering allows incumbents to stay in Congress without worry oflosing their positions.
Also, gerrymandering is unfair in how distrcits are created. Gerrymandering is carried out by packing and cracking. Packing is placing as many voters of the same party intoone district. By confining one party into one district, that party will easily win that distrcit but won't win in other distrcits since it won't have enough voters. Cracking is the spreading of voters...