Note: This is an update to a story that was originally published in 2015.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the federal courts have no rule to play in adjudicating questions of partisan gerrymandering, essentially letting individual states decide how best to deal with the question.
In most states, the drawing of congressional and legislative districts is handled by state legislatures. That creates a strong incentive for partisan lawmakers to draw districts in a way that benefits their own party. Here’s how it works.
Suppose we have a very small state with just 50 people. Thirty of them belong to the Blue Party while the rest align with the Red Party. For the purposes of our illustration, they happen to live in a nice orderly grid, with Blues on one side of the state and Reds on the other.
View the complete June 27 article by Christopher Ingraham on The Washington Post website here.