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March 28th, 2018: Gerrymander
It’s been in the news lately, particularly the district 7 where I live in Pennsylvania, but also in Maryland, North Carolina, Wisconsin,
Texas and a bunch of other states who haven’t made national headlines yet.
We know what it is, and how it affects elections, it’s probably been going on like forever, but where did that odd name come from.
It came from Massachusetts, in 1812 with this political cartoon in the Boston Gazette.
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The caricature of a map of the districts of South Essex of the state of Massachusetts threatened by a monster, a legendary salamander of medieval bestiaries—rendering what’s known as a persuasive map—was prompted by Governor Elbridge Gerry’s decision to redraw the area’s balloting zones to tilt favor towards the controlling senatorial party, the Democratic-Republicans. The portmanteau entered common-parlance by 1848 and occasionally other political bosses earn the suffix –mander for forwarding similar agendas. Incidentally, the Federalists, who advocated for a stronger central government, won the election and Gerry and his cronies were unseated though Essex county remained under Democratic-Republican control. |
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Clodfobble Wednesday Mar 28 12:42 AM
Also, his name was apparently pronounced "Gary," not "Jerry." We've been saying it wrong all these years.
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