Redistricting 101: Why should you care?

Once a decade, America’s political boundaries get something of a face lift. That process, called redistricting, is happening right now.

While it may seem arcane, the process has major implications. The outcomes that result from the new district lines are going to influence the policies the nation takes for the next 10 years or more.

The process starts with the census, the decennial count of how many people live in each state. Once we know that, the government divides up the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives based on each state’s population. Then, the states get to decide how to divvy up the districts they have been awarded, which communities to lump together in the same district and which to divide between different districts.

Redistricting is an inherently political process, and it gets messy, fast.

Both Democrats and Republicans will claim the other side is drawing lines that intentionally protects their own power, something they will call gerrymandering. And both sides will claim they just want fair district lines. But ask them to define the word “fair” and you’ll hear an answer that just so happens to benefit the person doing the answering.