Gerrymandering is just one example of how democracy, in the form of competitive elections, does not exist in much of America.The New York State Legislature's handling of reapportionment is a perfect example of rigging elections to benefit incumbents.
In 1920 rural politicians felt so threatened by the burgeoning cities that they held back reapportionment until the next count, in 1930.This year's census had its share of controversy.
And in North Carolina, long notorious for outrageous reapportionment, the chairman of the state redistricting committee is running for a new congressional seat that he himself mapped out.And now technology makes it worseSuch things have long been staples of American political life.
Republicans claim that the administration will manipulate the process by inflating the population estimates in congressional districts that traditionally vote Democratic.The judicial panel had to wade through the tortured prose of the 1957 Census Act, which, according to the court, prohibits the use of statistical sampling for congressional reapportionment.
After a decennial count of the population, therefore, congressional seats are divvied up among states accordingly, a process called reapportionment.
Being a minority in the state legislature, they will have little influence over the reapportionment of the state's seats in the House of Representatives in 2002.
Reince Priebus, who heads the Republican National Committee, said that electoral-vote reapportionment was something that "states that have been consistently blue [ie, Democratic] that are fully controlled red [ie, Republican] ought to be looking at".
The big winner from reapportionment is Texas, which will gain four seats.
Conservative Texas, for example, is gaining four seats in the reapportionment set in train by last year's census; liberal New York is losing two.But Democrats counter that the growth the Republicans are celebrating comes from natural Democratic constituencies.
Reince Preibus, who heads the Republican National Committee, said that electoral-vote reapportionment was something that "states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red ought to be looking at".
Under pressure from the U.S. Supreme Court, the state eventually achieved a reapportionment based on the "one man, one vote" principle in 1965.
