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This is not a trivial thing. Smaller states with few congressional districts allotted to them simply don't have much of a choice where to draw the lines. But as states grow larger in comparison to the rest of the country and almost inevitably split political control between the two major parties at the state level, court battles over redistricting issues become inevitable. After all, everyone's competing for a bigger piece of the same pie.

Congressional redistricting has become one of the most complex and most fought-over political issues of our time. In theory, each district should be contiguous, geographically compact and have about the same population as every other district in the nation. Gerrymandering, the practice of building a congressional district that provides one party or candidate with an advantage but does so at the expense of geographic compactness, is to be avoided.

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Section two of the 14th Amendment applies to the reapportionment of federal congressional seats among the states. It says, "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers?"

Redistricting is the adjustment of legislative boundaries. The manner in which redistricting is done is left up to each state. The purpose of redistricting is to ensure state voting districts meet the "One-Person, One-Vote" principle.

The "One-Person, One-Vote" standard was established in Reynolds v. Sims, when the court stated that, "each vote must count equally". The court found that the gerrymandering of legislative districts denied citizens the right of an "equally weighted vote". This right, protected by the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, which states, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

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elbisivni said:

Please try and understand why this is important, it's another method in which the system attempts to achieve balance yet in doing so it is used as a method to favor particular constituencies.

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If anyone knows anything about this and would like to add upon this discussion or correct any of my explanations, please do so.

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