St. Louis region reflects the increased polarization in the U.S. House

[pstokely]

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/st-louis-region-reflects-the-increased-polarization-in-the-u/article_f64720f0-c711-5964-bb61-72a287108712.html

"In 1997, when the Cook Political Report did its first Partisan Voter Index, 164 of the nation’s 435 congressional districts were electorally competitive. That is, they did not tilt more than 5 points Democrat or Republican.

But this year, only 72 districts are in that category. That means that only one out of six members of the so-called people’s House represents a district where he or she must equally try to satisfy people of different partisan beliefs in order to get re-elected.

The decline in competitive congressional districts is part of the reason why Congress can’t get big things done, experts say, an act typified by Friday’s vote to stave off shutting down the government with a stopgap, one-week funding bill.

Wasserman calls it “the incredible shrinking swing seat.”

He said that redrawing of boundary lines, often blamed for the increased polarization in Congress, is “only responsible for a small portion of this swing-seat decimation.” More of it is people’s decisions on where they live, Wasserman said.

“In many minimally altered districts, the electorate has simply become much more homogenous,” Wasserman reported. “Natural geographical sorting from election to election, much more than redistricting and gerrymandering, has driven the polarization of (congressional) districts over the last two decades.”"

[JNelson6563]

1. Ok, do I understand this correctly?

The biggest reason for the polarization is not the ridiculously gerrymandered districts that are re-drawn every 10 years. It is because of people moving into these districts because of how they vote?

I'm not buying it.

[Lee-Lee]

3. It could see that being legit to a degree

In both the districts I live and work in you don't see young, progressive college educated people coming to the area. Instead you see them leaving got NYC,LA, lots are going to Memphis right now for some reason, Atlanta.

Moving in instead we have mostly old, white, retired types. Lots of them coming out of those same areas saying they want to escape the "high taxes" and "big government"