Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The term gerrymandering is a portmanteau of a salamander and Elbridge Gerry, [a] [5] Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. The term has negative ...
Federalist newspapers' editors and others at the time likened the district shape to a salamander, and the word gerrymander was born out of a portmanteau of that word and Governor Gerry's surname. Partisan gerrymandering, which refers to redistricting that favors one political party, has a long tradition in the United States.
Elbridge Gerry (/ ˈ ɡ ɛr i / GHERR-ee; July 17, 1744 – November 23, 1814) was an American Founding Father, merchant, politician, and diplomat who served as the fifth vice president of the United States under President James Madison from 1813 until his death in 1814. [1]
Gerrymandering dates back to the 18th century, and damages democracy. But evidence suggests that independent commissions can improve the situation.
The old gerrymandering had a very bad stench and is still practiced in many states including Texas, columnist George Skelton writes. Column: Gerrymandering still exists in California. But reforms ...
Ohioans don't like gerrymandering, which is why both sides of the Issue 1 debate say they have a solution for it.
The efficiency gap was first devised by University of Chicago law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos and political scientist Eric McGhee in 2014. [3] The metric has notably been used to quantitatively assess the effect of gerrymandering, the assigning of voters to electoral districts in such a way as to increase the number of districts won by one political party at the expense of another.
Gerrymandering is a practice almost as old as the country, in which politicians draw district lines to “crack” opposing voters among several districts or “pack” them in a single one to ...