Most people believe that the outcome of elections in Texas is decided by the voters, but in our current single-member district system of electing representatives, frequently that is not the case. Often times who will win in an election is decided long before election day, usually by those who draw the district lines. For example, if the districts in texas are drawn to be 65 percent republican then the outcome will most likely result in republicans that have the majority of seats in the legislature. In a single member district system, only one member can be elected to congress for each district, that is why drawing the district lines is by far one of the most important aspects for a party to win seats. The parties assure their representatives
…show more content…
There are many solutions to this issue, but the most effective and instantaneously acting one would be to take the power of redrawing district lines entirely out of the hands of the legislature and let an independent nonpartisan commission take over the job (Prokop, 2015). This method would work very well and almost entirely rid Texas of gerrymandering. Other states actually use a similar method to this called ostensible redistricting commissions, but the problem with this is that the politicians appoint the members of the commission. In result, the commissions are not actually independent, and the legislature still holds some control over the situation, essentially making this method ineffective in eliminating partisan gerrymandering. Fortunately, there are several other ways to eliminate gerrymandering, such as the abandonment of the single member plurality system and replacing it with proportional representation. The purpose of proportional representation is to eliminate wasted votes and give representation to political parties in proportion to the votes they receive. This will essentially remove the issue of unfair representation that originates from partisan gerrymandering. They key to eliminating partisan gerrymandering from Texas elections is to adopt the large multimember districts used in PR
There are many solutions to this issue, but the most effective and instantaneously acting one would be to take the power of redrawing district lines entirely out of the hands of the legislature and let an independent nonpartisan commission take over the job (Prokop, 2015). This method would work very well and almost entirely rid Texas of gerrymandering. Other states actually use a similar method to this called ostensible redistricting commissions, but the problem with this is that the politicians appoint the members of the commission. In result, the commissions are not actually independent, and the legislature still holds some control over the situation, essentially making this method ineffective in eliminating partisan gerrymandering. Fortunately, there are several other ways to eliminate gerrymandering, such as the abandonment of the single member plurality system and replacing it with proportional representation. The purpose of proportional representation is to eliminate wasted votes and give representation to political parties in proportion to the votes they receive. This will essentially remove the issue of unfair representation that originates from partisan gerrymandering. They key to eliminating partisan gerrymandering from Texas elections is to adopt the large multimember districts used in PR