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Let’s end gerrymandering: let the people draw the lines

Gerrymander index
[[Gerrymandering]] has long been a problem in American politics. Every 10 years, after the decennial census, Congressional districts are re-drawn to even out the population of every district (700,000 people / Congressional district). Alan Lowenthal, Representative for California’s 47th congressional district, has introduced H.R. 2978: Let the People Draw the Lines Act of 2013 to help deal with this ongoing and increasingly intransigent issue. If you want to see for yourself, check out the recent Wonkblog post “What 60 years of political gerrymandering looks like.” Truly mind-blowing, and one of the main reasons that the current Congress is the least productive in American history!

So PLEASE contact your representative and tell them we need non-partisan Congressional districts so that politicians aren’t in charge of drawing their own districts to keep themselves safely ensconced in Congress year after year.

Lowenthal’s “Let the People Draw the Lines Act” would create independent panels consisting of five Democrats, five Republicans and four Independents.

“These would be people who haven’t run for office, who aren’t paid by either party, and who haven’t contributed to either party,” Lowenthal says. “That group would follow set criteria for drawing maps, and would hold public hearings throughout the state. The commission would approve the maps, and would not require legislative or governor’s approval. If there was a legal challenge it would immediately go to federal district court.”

via One easy way to end gerrymandering: Stop letting politicians draw their own districts.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


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