Gerrymandering is a difficult problem to solve for the following reasons. First, any solutions that potentially exist are rather subjective. For example, when the cases are taken to courts, they turn the courts political. The other way would to appoint bipartisan commissions. Similarly, members of such commissions will be working in accordance with their party interests.
Members of Congress are driven by several objectives. For instance, there is personal convictions with regards to particular subjects. There is also the party’s position on certain controversial issues on the floor of the house. However, the urge to get reelected usually make the congresspersons to align themselves with the party position. For instance, congresspersons from red state will mostly side with the Republican party while those from blue states will mostly align themselves with the Democratic party.
The committee system is such that members drawn from both pollical parties collectively work towards accomplishing a common goal. For instance, the justice committee’s main objective is to oversee the judicial aspects of governance. The primary benefit of the committee system is that it draws members from all the political parties (Sundquist). The processes undertaken are thus likely to be bipartisan. The main demerit of this system is that membership in the various committees is based on the party’s overall strength in the house. Therefore, the party that control congress in terms of numbers also get to control the various committees.
The electoral college is constituted by representatives of all the states. The populous vote of each individual state will determine the candidate that will get the electoral college vote for that particular state (Sundquist). For instance, if Republican win the Texas presidential vote by a simple majority, all the electoral college votes for the state will go to the Republican presidential candidate. The number of electoral college votes per state is determined by the population. Big states like California and Texas have more electoral votes that smaller states like Vermont or Alaska.
Work Cited
Sundquist, James L. Dynamics of the party system: Alignment and realignment of political parties in the United States. Brookings Institution Press, 2011.
