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Redistricting solution

With the 2020 Census finally in the books, state legislatures throughout the country face the task of redrawing congressional and legislative district boundaries to balance out the populations in each. This ensures that each citizen in each district will get equal representation — one person, one vote.

But the process of redistricting has also come to be known as gerrymandering season. Political parties who control legislatures have been known to redraw district boundaries in their favor — to bring together distant groups of one party into an octopus-shaped district, for example, or to break up an opposing party’s stronghold. Already this fall, Texas Republicans have approved congressional maps that preserve their grip on power, with other groups filing lawsuits claiming the maps discriminate against Latino voters who have driven the state’s population growth.

Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has told the Republicans in control of the Legislature there to “start over” if they expect him to support their plans.

Minnesota, as the one state in the union with a divided Legislature, knows there will be no agreement and has been sending its redistricting process to the courts for objective, non-partisan district mapping.

As the country’s politics have become more polarized, it becomes increasingly important that people should be able to select representatives that fit their community or neighborhood. Reasonably drawn district maps will help them achieve that.

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