Cracking and Packing
6/11/202652 min
Gerrymandering has long been part of American politics. But as the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act, states are getting more extreme with their redistricting.
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Roman Mars· Host0:29
It is Tuesday, June 9th at 2.42 p.m. as we're recording this. What are we going to talk about today?
Elizabeth Joh· Host0:36
Well, Roman, so what does the term gerrymander mean to you?
Roman Mars· Host0:40
Well, as I understand it, it means like drawing a ridiculously shaped district in order to advantage your own political party.
Elizabeth Joh· Host0:49
I think that's right. So if you see a district that actually doesn't look like anything that you would find in nature or political nature, that is, it's not a square. It's not a rectangle. It might have very strange contorted shapes in it. It's probably been gerrymandered. And so you're right. Gerrymandering refers to the creation of a voting district that is deliberately drawn to advantage a particular political party.
Speaker 31:14
Mm-hmm.
Elizabeth Joh· Host1:14
And the name goes back to 1812 when the Massachusetts governor, Elbridge Gerry, decided to approve congressional districts that were drawn to help his party, the Democrat Republicans. And one of the newspapers at the time,