Gerrymandering Exercise PDF

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GO101: Gerrymandering Exercise PART 1: Redistricting I first opened up the link and clicked on the first mission which is fundamentals of the basics of redistricting in the State of Jefferson. Then I clicked onto basic and it brought be to a new tab and asked me to pick a political party. I choose the Democratic party, and my mission is fulfill one of the key tasks in congressional redistricting is to establish population equality. That is, to make sure that each district is a state has virtually the same number of people in. I was then given four House of Representative members and a brief biography of each one. I then had to place the four representatives into districts that they would succeed the most in. I must achieve the missions goals before the State Legislature will vote on my plan. The return to the map and redraw the districts until I have achieved the Mission goals. My originally plan failed, so I had to redo my redistricting again. After moving around my map for a while, I was finally able to get all four check marks on each of my representatives and finish my mission. Then at the end a newspaper article is rewritten about my success on redistricting!

PART 2 :Apportionment 1. Are there differences? a. No, from 2000-2010 the number of Apportioned representatives based on that year’s census where the same 2. Are there states that benefit from one method over the other? a. The Constitution provides for proportional representation in the U.S. House of Representatives and the seats in the House are apportioned   based on state population. The House passed the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, fixing the number of Representatives at 435. The U.S. Constitution called for at least one Representative per state and that no more than one for every 30,000 persons. Thus, the size of a state's House delegation depended on its population. 3. Were your results all the same? a. Yes, because the numbers were static 4. Which states gained or lost representation? a. Usually the states that lose in population, lost representation. For example, New Jersey used to have 14 districts, but because of the population decrease, New Jersey now has 12 districts, meaning there is a decrease of House of Representatives for New Jersey. 5. What areas of the country are they in? a. Usually in the states with heavy population. So around the edges of the U.S, or with large bodies of water. 6. What are the resulting geographic shifts in power in Congress? a. The more heavily populated a state is, the more representatives they are given by congress, but the total number can never exceed 435...