Robyn Ochs
Speaker • Teacher • Writer • Activist
reagan-was-a-horrible-president:
#gerrymanderVia teabonics-fb
The 7th Congressional District of Tennessee is a congressional district located in the middle and southwestern parts of the state, connecting suburbs of Nashville to suburbs of Memphis.
The 7th is a very safe seat for the Republican Party. In fact, it has long been reckoned as the state’s most Republican area outside the party’s traditional heartland in East Tennessee.
Democrats have made only two serious bids for the district since it took on its current form in 1983, and came within single digits only once. Most of the district’s residents have not been represented by a Democrat since 1973.
Nashville and Memphis are approximately 210 miles apart along Interstate 40.
And THAT’S what gerrymandering looks like.
This is unethical and is being done in far too many states. Here’s how the Repugs have hold most of the House seats in Michigan even though Michiganders cast 240,000 more votes for Democratic congressional candidates than Republican ones, but nonetheless elected a 9-5 Repug delegation to Congress. To protect [restore] democracy we should switch to a system that creates districts by an agreed upon computer program, applied to all districts without regard to impact.
For more on this, check out this article: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/17/1459991/rslc-gerrymandering-house/
Robyn Ochs 