a persons vote is going to count more than anothers. In 1962 case of this concern went to the Supreme Court. In Baker v. Carr the Court declared in a 6-2 decision that districting can violate the 14th Amendmentss equal protection clause. This case made it apparent that legislative apportionment is a legitimate judicial issue. Further more, in 1965 the Voting Rights Act added that legislatures could not dilute representation of racial minorities when redistricting. This act, along with the idea of equal representation brought the courts to play and active role in redistricting in the last thirty years. However, these two basic theories have often been on the same side of many courts decisions, but in the case of the eleventh district in Georgia equal representation and the rights of minorities are at odds with on another. As mentioned before the district was seen as a racial gerrymander and was declared unconstitutional. A gerrymander is a way of drawing boundaries of electoral districts in a way that gives one party an unfair advantage over another. It comes from Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who in 1812 created a district north of Boston which was intended to give disproportionate representation to his own party, the Democratic-republicans. The geographic shape resembled a salamander, which brought about the name gerrymander. But one interesting point to note is that not all gerrymandering is illegal, though it might be condemned. The condemnation stems from the idea that it violates the two basic tenets of electoral proportions; the compactness, or the reluctance to form strange shapes of districts, and the equality of size of the constituencies. But in the states legislatures today, majority parties continue to practice gerrymandering. Davidson and Oleszek are clear to points out that all districting is gerrymandering(p.47), in which it is often used for partisan advantage, to protect incumbents, to boost stat...
