Stephen Breyer Quotes

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.

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

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.

These districts at the federal and state level that are gerrymandered tend to produce a lot of extremism.

Redistricting reform is one of the most important issues we can tackle.

California is among several states that already have fought their way out from under partisan gerrymandering by taking line-drawing authority away from the Legislature.

Florida is one of the first states that sort of gives the legislature a very clear criteria for re-drawing electoral district maps. Basically, all the criteria do is tell the legislators that you can't draw a seat that helps yourself or a political party. That's really critical.

No one likes the Electoral College, expect perhaps those who were elected because of it. No one likes gerrymandering, except those doing the gerrymandering. No one likes the filibuster, except those doing the filibustering.

My tentative plan is to gerrymander all of those crazy libs right out of the section and replace them with right-thinking Americans..

There's no question about it, from a big picture standpoint, our No. 1 goal must remain reapportionment, because if we allow ourselves to get ruthlessly gerrymandered in reapportionment as we did last time, we can forget any reasonable chance of getting control of the U. S. House of Representatives until well into the next millennium.

It has become a cliché that voters no longer choose their legislators. The legislators choose their voters.

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

[When redistricting] there is no such thing as non-partisan…. Beware of non-partisan, or bi-partisan staff bearing gifts. They probably are not your friends.

If I was the leader of the House of Representatives, the first thing I would do is I would put in a very clean bill on reapportionment. And I would put a very clean bill in that says that corporations are not people.

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

Equal constituencies' sound fair. So why is Labour so against the constituencies bill and why do we call it gerrymandering? Because, like so much Tory rhetoric, it sounds good, but if we look beyond the soundbites it becomes clear that it covers policies that promote narrow sectional interests.

In Maryland, we have the unfortunate distinction of being the most gerrymandered state in the entire nation.

American voting districts are, across a lot of the country, deeply messed up by having been gerrymandered by right-wing politicians.

In democracy, as quaintly understood, voters pick their representatives. American democracy increasingly reverses that. Legislative districts are drawn to protect incumbents who, effectively, pick their voters.

Political gerrymandering makes the incentive for most members of Congress to play to the extremes of their base rather than to the center.

Try to un-gerrymander these districts so that you're not packing all the Democrats into one district, so you've got districts that are competitive, so that you've got a shot at electing Democrats. But that's more a long-term proposition, if it can even be done.

So the - the part of the problem is not just the rhetoric. It's the fact that we - we're so polarized in what we've done to each other as parties over the last thirty years in redistricting that it's very, very hard to overcome your own constituencies and move to the middle.

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

Redistricting is one of the purest actions a legislative body can take.