George Mason Speaks on Gerrymandering

“As a professional politician from Virginia, the largest State in my time, I have an appreciation for the value of Gerrymandering and might have wished to employ it during my tenure.  However, I believe my record of having refused to sign the Constitution because it did not include a Bill of Rights makes it clear that fairness and justice are clear values of mine.

I was amazed at the extent to which the boundaries of Congressional districts are manipulated to assure a particular party can win the district.  For example, North Carolina’s 12^th Congressional District, shown above, has the characteristics of extreme gerrymandering.  But not as extreme as Illinois’ 4^th Congressional district which is so severely gerrymandered that it almost appears to be two districts rather than one.  Such manipulation of the populace is contrary to all the principles upon which this Nation was founded.

Since allowing arbitrary selection of Congressional districts obviously results in manipulation by the group in power to remain in power, and since this practice results in perversion of the objectives  in the founding of the nation, a solution must be found.

  

A formula for drawing district boundaries that would provide appropriate representation would have been difficult if not impossible until the advent of computers.  Today it is quite simple to define such a formula and an appropriate one is to choose the districts so each contains equal population and so that the sum of the perimeter of all the districts is a minimum.