Stephen Breyer Quotes

Political gerrymanders existed in colonial times and continued through the framing. The Framers provided a remedy for the problem: the Constitution gives state legislatures the initial power to draw federal election districts, but authorizes Congress to “make or alter” those districts

By using the latest sophisticated software, state legislatures can carve out districts that guarantee electoral victory for one party or the other, often in the service of protecting incumbents.

When you work in the United States Senate, and you are around people of all different ideas and beliefs, you realize that what our Founding Fathers did that was so genius, is that they made the Senate the place where compromises are supposed to happen because of the makeup of the Senate.

The task of redistricting is best left to state legislatures, elected by the people and as capable as the courts, if not more so, in balancing the myriad factors and traditions in legitimate districting policies. The task of redistricting is best left to state legislatures, elected by the people and as capable as the courts, if not more so, in balancing the myriad factors and traditions in legitimate districting policies.

Redistricting is the nastiest form of politics that there is.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

My State Senate district was in the northern part of Oklahoma and they were redrawing the districts.

Redistricting is a deeply political process, with incumbents actively seeking to minimize the risk to themselves (via bipartisan gerrymanders) or to gain additional seats for their party (via partisan gerrymanders).

By definition, politics is, or ought to be, division.

We cannot always count on a severely gerrymandered legislature itself to find and implement a remedy [to gerrymandering.]

No one ever asserts that politics has no role in apportionment or redistricting.

American politics is not, as is that of Europe, "a prelude to civil war"; it cannot become either entirely irresponsible or entirely dogmatic; and it must not try to be logical. It is a rocking sea of checks and balances in which uncompromising absolutes must drown.

During [President Martin Van Buren's] stay in New York he has visited most of the public places in the constant custody of a set of men who are not (unless he has greatly changed) the sort of folks he would have chosen for his associates; but party politics, like poverty, bring men "acquainted with strange bedfellows.

That is what politics is really about—reality and not image.

In our system today, many people don’t have to win general elections; they just have to win primaries.

Redistricting makes the inequities in campaign financing even worse. Most elections are so noncompetitive due to how the lines are drawn that big donors already know who's going to win. So they give to the likely winners to curry favor.

Every individual who participated in the redistricting process knew that incumbency protection was a critical factor in producing the bizarre lines.... Many of the oddest twists and turns of the Texas districts would never have been created if the Legislature had not been so intent on protecting party and incumbents

If we’re going to do all the things that the Constitution says that legitimately we can do as a country, … we have to be able to have a Congress where people can talk together like our Founding Fathers did.

Considering the question of Reform … the Queen thinks the proposal of merely adding neighboring towns to the small boroughs an improvement on the original plan, which contemplated the taking away of members from some boroughs, and giving them to others. Thus the animosity may be hoped to be avoided which an attack upon vested interests could not have failed to have produced. Much will depend, however, upon the completeness, fairness, and impartiality with which the selection of the towns will be made which are to be admitted into the electoral district of others.

Gerrymandering is not hard. The core technique is to jam voters likely to favor your opponents into a few throwaway districts where the other side will win lopsided victories, a strategy known as “packing.” Arrange other boundaries to win close victories, “cracking” opposition groups into many districts.

Normally we would expect more seats in Congress to go to the political party that receives more votes, but the last election confounded expectations. Democrats received 1.4 million more votes for the House of Representatives, yet Republicans won control of the House by a 234 to 201 margin.

The wheels of compromise lose traction as Congress sinks into an ooze of dysfunction.

Vibrant political parties are vital to the health of our democracy.

I've got the most beautiful district. I can understand why Republicans want it.

Gerrymandering at its essence is supposed to be used to reflect the changing geography to ensure representation. But we know that politics gets involved and it's used to benefit whoever's in control. That's the problem we have with gerrymandering.