GERRYMANDERING and REDISTRICTING REFORM
Recent cleveland.com articles on Gerrymandering in Ohio:
- Ohio's Gerrymandering Problem: Why haven't we fixed this yet?
- Are Ohio's Statehouse leaders offering new hope to fix gerrymandering this time?
- Gerrymandering: Why you should care
- History: What has created today's mess
- What Ohio can learn from California
- What Ohio can learn from Arizona
To read the entire series on Gerrymandering in Ohio, click here.
Gerrymandering: What it Means for You
Below is an excerpt from The DailyKos, adapted from an article in Mother Jones
Before the 2010 election, conservatives launched a plan to win control of state legislatures before the census. The idea was to be in power when national congressional districts were redrawn in order to fix them so Republicans would win a majority of districts. The Redistricting Majority Project was hugely successful. In 2012, Barack Obama was elected President by nearly 3.5 million votes. In Congressional races, Democrats drew nearly 1.4 million more votes than Republicans yet Republicans won control of the House 234 seats to 201 seats.
How is this possible? By pumping $30 million into state races to win the legislatures, Republicans redrew state maps in states such as Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas, Florida and Ohio to place all of the Democrats into just a few districts.
In this manner, Democrats win heavily in a couple districts and lose the rest. In North Carolina, the statewide vote was 51 percent Democrat and 49 percent Republican yet 9 Republicans won and only 4 Democrats.