Districting, redistricting, and how Americans are represented in the senate has been anything but consistent throughout the history of America. The recent districting arms race between Republicans and Democrats is yet another example of how the two parties are willing to reduce citizen representation in favor of political power. Our current bicameral legislature is the direct result of a compromise made by the founding fathers during America’s formative years, and was intended to give citizens equal representation based on their state and population. Each state is split into many districts, with each district holding significant weight when it comes to electing senators and representatives. Redistricting, the adjustment of previously existing districts, is only supposed to be used to help improve the accuracy of representation among districts in the face of population shifts. Sadly, American politicians have mostly used redistricting to manipulate political statistics and sway elections.

The most recent redistricting war between Democrats and Republicans seems to be fueled by the upcoming midterm elections. Many states with close to even party splits between their districts have been redistricted into being majority Republican or Democrat, with each redistricting prompting an equal response from the opposing party. For example both California and Virginia have been holding increasingly heated special elections over whether new redistricting plans should be implemented. Virginia in particular has been proposing a redistricting plan that would turn nearly all of their Republican districts into Democrat districts. What disturbs me the most about this recent redistricting war is how politicians seem unafraid to display full partisan bias in their statements about districting. Redistricting is so blatantly corrupt and anti-democratic that past politicians attempted to conceal their redistricting efforts and confuse voters in polls asking about redistricting. The current hyper partisan state of politics under Trump has allowed politicians to openly endorse district manipulation, as increasingly partisan voters have begun to care less about their own representation and more about defeating their political opponents at any cost. Districting arms races are bad for everybody, and if we continue to justify them with partisan reasoning we’ll all pay the price as democracy in America grows ever weaker.