Essay 13 Reapportionment

 2008-1) Congressional reapportionment and redistricting are conducted every ten years. When redistricting is conducted, politicians often engage in gerrymandering.
(a) Define congressional reapportionment and explain one reason why it is important to states.
(b) Define congressional redistricting.
(c) Explain two goals of politicians when they gerrymander during redistricting.
(d) Describe two limits that the United State Supreme Court has placed on congressional redistricting.

With the always changing population, reapportionment is an important factor in determining our political representation. As the states change in population, the number of representatives of the state is reflected by the state's population. Reapportionment is the changing of the number of representatives in a given state to reflect it's population. Another method of change that occurs in our political climate is congressional redistricting. Redistricting is the making of state electoral boundaries. Politicians often try to use redistricting to their advantage. Such as encouraging redistricting to have a district containing more of the candidate's political party. Also the attempt to redistrict to contain more of one racial ethnicity in the district is an example of gerrymandering.

The supreme court has taken steps to limit gerrymandering while redistricting. They have limited the process of redistricting to every ten years. Also the idea of arranging the electoral votes to those candidates that did not get the popular vote. Another rule is that districts must be equally populated and cannot be compact.

Answer Key: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap08_gopo_us_sgs.pdf