General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Gerrymandering. Explain this to me like I am 10 years old. [View all]FakeNoose
(41,702 posts)It has been explained in other posts here that there are no hard-and-fast rules set up by our Constitution on how to draw up the districts. Rural counties have low pop. density so it often takes several counties to make up one Congressional District. Meanwhile metropolitan (big city) districts are split into multiple Congressional Districts that are required to have nearly equal population - since those citizens all live much closer together.
Consider the Senate for a moment. Every state has two Senators no matter how large or small the state is. Most of us understand why the Senate is set up to favor the rural low-population states that are mostly conservative. Those Senators from rural low-pop states have more voting power per state than the Senators who were voted in by high pop (usually liberal) states. If you understand that distinction in the Senate, then it would be the same thing if we made each county have its own Representative regardless of how many citizens lived in the county. The Representatives from (conservative) rural counties would have more voting power than the Representatives from high population (liberal) counties. It would defeat the purpose of having a House of Representatives if we did that. So that's why we don't have it.
It's complicated and hard work to draw up fair Congressional District maps, but it can be done. My contention is that incumbents (current office-holders) should not be allowed to participate.