Partisan gerrymandering has been an issue in our democracy for generations, and it makes people feel like their votes don’t count and government isn’t responsive to them. Both parties have been guilty of drawing maps to benefit their members, lock in majorities, and protect incumbents.
Gerrymandering undercuts the basis of our representative democracy, and it causes people to believe their vote doesn’t count.
We need to get control of our democracy back in the hands of the people, and we need our politicians to reflect the will of the constituencies they represent. If we don’t remove the politics from the drawing of district maps for voting purposes, we’ll continue to have representative bodies that don’t reflect the populations they’re representing, and that are promoting an agenda that is reflective of a smaller and smaller proportion of the population.
Problems to be Solved
- checkPartisan gerrymandering has undercut the foundations of our representative democracy.
- Gerrymandering has led to legislators being more worried about primary challenges from the extremes of their own party rather than appealing to a broad constituency. This in turn has led to increased polarization and dysfunction and more people tuning out because they don’t feel represented. We should do all we can to reverse redrawing voting districts on both sides.
Goals
- checkEnd partisan gerrymandering
As President I will...
- Promote the use of the efficiency gap to measure partisan gerrymandering when evaluating and drawing district maps.
- Promote the use of independent redistricting commissions (a nonpartisan, supermajority commission, similar to California’s).
- Appoint Supreme Court justices who support the use of sociological tools such as the efficiency gap to help end partisan gerrymandering.