For two centuries, the gerrymander was an ordinary part of U.S. politics. And, then, the unthinkable happened: Republicans got really, really good at it.
The gerrymander, named for Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry (he also served as James Madison's vice president) takes its name from a peculiarly shaped legislative district, thought to resemble a salamander, obviously drawn in such a way as to increase the electoral chances of Gerry's party, the Democratic-Republicans, to which the modern Democratic party traces its roots.
That was 1812. Some 205 years later, the state legislatures are looking too red for the tastes of modern Democrats, who are going to the Supreme Court to argue that legislative redistricting, an inherently political exercise, is too . . . political.
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