What's at stake, after all, is citizens' representation in Congress. Partisan gerrymandering undermines the whole notion of a representative government. For proof, just look toward the lopsided seat distribution in the current Congress.

I chose this passage because I believe that it sums up the entirety of what is being said in both of the articles assigned. One does not have to be a history major or a political scientist to see that in no way does gerrymandering benefit those being represented. That’s not to say that this is “always” true. But in politics, as it is in life, the words “always” and “never” rarely if ever come into play. However it does seem plausible to state that the majority of the time gerrymandering does not serve the best interests of those being represented so much as it does that of those running for office and the eventual turn out of which political party will gain the most power in congress. If the goal is to provide fair and equal representation of their constituents in the House of Representatives how can this be possible when the election district that a congressman represents is drawn up in a way that makes this impossible since the make up of the district is skewed to support a particular party far above and beyond the people in that district? In a prima facie view this amounts to little more than election rigging.
            The practice of gerrymandering election districts needs to be put to a stop and a new, fair and truly representative system needs to be put in place. It would seem to me that the fairest way to do this would be to place a grid over the boundaries of each state and divide it in terms of square miles or whatever unit of measure works so long as it is unbiased and then draw the division lines for each district as close to the dividing lines of the grid so as to assign an equal number of people to every district. Then the representative from that district should be elected to represent that district. I think it would be best, although not necessary, for that person to come from that district. By drawing the boundaries this way it would ensure that there was no political bias toward how the districts were drawn up, they would just be divided equally and let the chips fall where they may. Districts would be of different sizes in terms of square miles but not of the number of people represented. In doing this the representative elected would have the obligation to fairly represent the wants and needs of the people in his district and since the districts would be drawn up geometrically taking nothing into account but the number of people in the district it would cause the make-up of the district to randomly consist of people of various SES, race, and political affiliations. This method may sound overly simplistic but sometimes the simplest way is the best because it leaves little if any room for bias. The people from each district would elect their congressional representatives to represent their needs and wants and not to help a particular party gain majority control and power in the House.