Political Quotes

“reserving the right to object, the text of the Constitution explicitly assigns power to engage in redistricting to elected State legislatures in the States. There is a reason for that. That ensures that redistricting is controlled by the people. We have an unfortunate pattern in today's Congress, which is today's Democrats no longer believe in democracy. Their bill, S. 1--what many call the Corrupt Politicians Act--is designed to prevent the voters from voting Democrats out of office. This bill, the bill to remove the State legislatures from their constitutionally appointed responsibility of being in charge of redistricting, would instead assign that to commissions and ultimately to the Federal courts, to unelected Federal judges. Now, redistricting and gerrymandering can lead to ugly consequences. This is not new. The Founders were well aware of the ugly consequences of gerrymandering. Indeed, the very word ``gerrymander'' comes from Elbridge Gerry, one of the Founders whose district was so contorted, it looked like a salamander. That is where the district came from. The Founders knew that if you give redistricting to elected politicians, they will act based on political concerns. The reason the Founders did so is, even with those down sides, it keeps the process accountable to the people. If you instead hand it over to unelected commissions or to unelected Federal judges, the people are disenfranchised. That is a serious mistake.…”