Redistricting Basics

Redistricting is the least talked about, but arguably most important political process in America and Arizona.

Redistricting is the process of re-drawing the boundaries of political subdivisions, including city council districts, state legislative districts and congressional districts.

You can draw districts that favor your party, an ethnic group or simply the people who are in power now.

Both political parties and powerful incumbents will do everything they can to make certain that districts favor them. As the old saying goes, “Why stuff ballot boxes when you can draw districts?”

Have you ever heard the term “Gerrymandering”? Its origins are from the early days of our Republic, but it refers to the act of manipulating the redistricting process for political gain.

The result: fewer and fewer districts where there is a true competition of ideas, where candidates from either party could win.

What does this lack of competitive districts mean for you? It means that legislators, once elected have less of an incentive to be responsive to the broadest number of voters in their district.

It means that the candidate who best panders to the most extreme and active elements of his or her party in the primary election will most likely win in the general election, meaning that over 60% of the voters in his or her district probably did not have a reasonable voice in the election.

Did you know that, because of the way we have drawn our district boundaries, over 500,000 voters out of the total 3,100,000 voters in the state effectively don’t have a voice in their elections? Another 800,000 voters who are registered as independent have little chance of affecting the outcome of any legislative races.

Over the last 40 years in America the number of competitive congressional districts has shrunk. Is it any wonder that politics seems more corrupt, more divisive and less accessible than ever before?