My parents DON'T live in a gerrymandered district

[Ediacara]

They moved to Arizona last year from Washington, where the districts are generally blobby. They now live in Arizona-02. WTF!

[mrreowwr_kittty]

1. Arizona is gerrymandered like a mofo

Not just the CDs either. The State Lege districts are a mess too. They tried to combat it by taking districting away from the Legislature and having a bi-partisan commission do it. But not much changed. GOP registration is about 10% higher than Dem overall but you'd think there were no Dems here the way the races turn out.

[Ediacara]

2. I mean WTF is that blob and umbilicus into the northern district?

I thought stuff like that was specifically outlawed...

ON EDIT: I live in Montana and we just have one House district, so no gerrymandering there. The state House and Senate districts are pretty sane though, although tremendous size disparities between urban and rural areas:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=358&topic_id=1688&mesg_id=1688

[mrreowwr_kittty]

3. Long history of this crap in AZ

Don't forget, we're the state with the dubious distinction of having a former SCOTUS Justice (Rheinquist) who got his start intimidating African American voters. And now it's socially acceptable here to pile on the brown people, under the guise of "concern over immigration".

[RB TexLa]

4. Both parties do it, but there is some to occur naturally due to

population as well as adhering to the voting rights act.

[Ediacara]

5. I realize that

I'm not blaming the GOP only (although this thing is their doing), but this district is just ridiculous!

[RB TexLa]

8. a funny line about them a friend of mine was working on the maps for the...

La. legislature after the '90 census and told me "if we could just use parts of Mississippi or Texas the districts could be very nicely shaped."

[KingFlorez]

6. California is pretty bad too

Here the Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature work together to protect incumbents. Out of 54 seats, not one is drawn competitively.

[Vexatious Ape]

7. If we can't win in November it will be

because of districts like this--gives me the creeps.

[Solon]

9. This is why I oppose the idea of congressional districts for the Federal...

House of Representatives. At best, we should have at large state wide races for a slate of candidates, either with party lists, or candidates themselves. Not to mention, in addition to this, getting rid of the arbitrarily low limit of 435 reps in the House.