Gerrymandering

You’ve probably heard of gerrymandering, the term for when politicians redraw political districts to either consolidate power — or break up their opponents’ supporters. But you probably don’t know that it dates back to the earliest years of the country and was named after a district that looked like a salamander. And you also may not know how it directly...

Texas Republicans are rolling out a slew of restrictive election bills, taking particular aim at early voting after Democrats enthusiastically embraced the practice last year

One of the goals of the voting rights reform bill, recently passed by House Democrats and facing a uphill battle in the Senate, is to end gerrymandering. It is the practice of state legislatures manipulating the boundaries of district maps in ways that favor one party or racial group.  An increasing number of states have employed independent commissions to...

A nationwide push to relax drug laws took a significant step forward Tuesday

The gerrymandering wars are heading South, NBC News reports. A number of Southern states, including Texas, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, are prime targets for partisan gerrymandering as the congressional redistricting process gets underway after next year’s statehouse elections, experts said. “Many of the states that had the really aggressive gerrymanders the last time — Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin —…