Elections Have Consequences: More Reasons to Vote Out Democrats

It's about gerrymandering, the deliberate distortion of the borders of electoral districts to cause results that favor the party in power. Politicians like to redistrict in their own favor, which is one reason that it is so hard to defeat incumbents.

Remember that Congressional kookette from New York State who horrified the nation by proposing Demon Pass as a great way for Democrats to perform an end-run around the Constitution of the United States? Incredibly, Louise Slaughter was actually elected, by apparently somnambulant voters in the Buffalo and Rochester areas, to their shame.

Are there no conservative voters in these areas who would cast their votes more wisely? I think there are. But look at how carefully the inconvenient Republican voters were removed from Slaughter's district (marked in green) in a redistricting after the 1990 census. Since then she has been re-elected 7 times with no serious opposition and thus allowed to rise to the position of chair of the obviously important House Rules Committee.

Here's another cute district, this one in Illinois (not Obama's former district, but nearby), aimed a keeping Hispanic voters "together":

By the way, how did Barney Frank keep getting elected over and over again? No doubt the layout of his district in Massachusetts did him no harm:

Redistricting is conducted every 10 years following the census recount. Whoever is in charge in 2011 will be determining the likely outcome of future elections.

That means that upcoming Congressional elections won't be the only vitally important ones.

State elections will have very significant consequences as well.
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