History of gerrymandering

QUOTE from the THE QUOTABLE BITCH by Paula Abdul, singer, on Simon Cowell, American Idol judge: " I welcome him like I welcome cold sores. He's from England, he's angry and he's got Mad Power Disease."

What I LEARNED today. I've read several articles recently about the 2010 census and what it means for the redistricting of the U.S. House of Representatives. Iowa is going to lose one seat in the House - we'll go from 5 to 4. Two words that come up every ten years are the words redistricting and gerrymandering. The big question is who will be in charge in each state of drawing up the new districts? This is where gerrymandering comes into the picture.

I've always known was gerrymandering is - it means to deliberately redraw districts into unusual shapes in order to achieve specific political aims. In other words to make sure that the candidate of your party will be sure to win. So the redrawers make sure there are enough favorable voters in that district to get the job done. If it sounds shady and suspect....that's because it is. But I didn't know the history of it. So my curious mind was saying words that began with the letter "W", like who, what where, when and why. So I went to GOOGLE and learned a little history today:

The term gerrymander, which was originally written as "gerry-mander," was first used in the Boston Gazette newspaper in March, 1812. The term was coined in response to the efforts of Massachusetts Governor Eldridge Gerry, who signed a bill that redistricted Mass. in such a manner that the Democratic-Republican party was clearly assisted, to the detriment of the opposing Federalist party. Upon looking at the map, many remarked that the drawing resembled a salamander, and a popular political cartoon of the time showed a dragon wrapped around the outside of the map. A Federalist leader saw the re-drawn map and, making a play on words, said that it was best called a "gerrymander" rather than a salamander. After 1812 political writers covering elections used the word "gerrymander" to refer to this process that was, in essence, created by Gerry. So there you go, as you hear the word gerrymander in the next year you can thank Eldrige Gerry for this shady practice.

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