Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM FEBRUARY 16 - 22, 2022 UCW 5 Gerrymandering. It is a word only a sitting legislator in the majority party can love. For everyone else, it is a word that can send us into a deep sleep lasting the duration of any given election year. Yes, it is a boring concept for most of us, but make no mistake. When it comes to gerrymandering — you snooze, you lose. Here is a quick tutorial. e US Constitution requires an actual count of how many people live in our nation taken every ten years, and that count is called a census. e first census was taken in 1790 and found just under four million newly minted Americans. e 2020 census found almost 334 million of us. Census data has many uses, but their most important role is deter- mining representation in the US House of Representatives and state legislatures. For example, our least populous state, Wyoming, has only one mem- ber of the US House, while North Car- olina, the 9th most populous state, now has 14 members of the House to represent us in Washington. Redistricting based on census data is done in all states, mostly by par- tisan legislatures, including the NC General Assembly. e idea is that each citizen has roughly equal representation — that no state's and no citizen's political clout is appreciably greater than any other's based on population. It is a simple stab at fairness that has been polluted from the birth of our nation. Simply put, the party in power at any given moment ma- nipulates the census information to ensure that more candidates repre- senting its point of view get elected than candidates from other parties and points of view. It has been done by political parties that no longer exist, and more recently, by both Democrats and Republicans. At its basest definition, gerryman- dering means politicians select their voters and not the other way around. And why should you care? Isn't ger- rymandering just politics, as usual, no matter who is doing it? You should care because the people doing the gerrymandering may well be taking your vote away from you. Consider this. If you are a Demo- crat in a congressional or legislative district heavily gerrymandered to be Republican, there is really no reason for you to make an effort to vote. e Democrats you support are not going to be elected. It works the other way, as well, for Republicans in heavily gerrymandered Democratic districts. Gerrymandering is a theft of a basic right of citizenship — your right to vote and choose who represents you. But it is complicated. Over time, various and sometimes conflicting court rulings have made the redis- tricting process consider the rights of minority voters, the wholeness of communities both by geography and culture and other factors. ese are often difficult to assess and balance and are virtually im- possible for average voters to grasp, which translates into a national sleeping potion. Complicated though it is, legal redistricting and its ugly twin, ger- rymandering, are facts of American life that affect each and every voter and those they love. You should care because not caring and opposing ger- rymandering essentially gives your vote to others whose viewpoints and goals may well be the exact opposite of yours and may promote policies that harm you and your family. More cynically, if you agree with the current gerrymanderers, legisla- tors in North Carolina and through- out the nation, the political pendu- lum always swings. ey, and you, will eventually be on the receiving end of gerrymandering, and you may not like that — not one little bit! Much less painful and much more palatable is redistricting reform to rein in out-of-control gerrymander- ing birthed by vicious and out-of- control political partisanship. OPINION Time to wake up and smell the coffee by MARGARET DICKSON Photo courtesy of Pexels. MARGARET DICKSON, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910-484-6200. 4104 Raeford Rd. Fayetteville, NC 28304 910.483.1234 www.bryanhonda.com Proudly Serving Our Community For 75 Years. Home of the Bryan Honda $3,010 Advantage!