Gerrymandering Within Congress

"Gerrymandering is at least partly to blame for the lopsided Republican representation in the House. According to an analysis I did last year, the Democrats are under-represented by about 18 seats in the House, relative to their vote share in the 2012 election. The way Republicans pulled that off was to draw some really, really funky-looking Congressional districts.

Contrary to one popular misconception about the practice, the point of gerrymandering isn't to draw yourself a collection of overwhelmingly safe seats. Rather, it's to give your opponents a small number of safe seats, while drawing yourself a larger number of seats that are not quite as safe, but that you can expect to win comfortably. Considering this dynamic, John Sides of The Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog has argued convincingly that gerrymandering is not what's behind the rising polarization in Congress."

It is interesting to me how this paragraph describes gerrymandering in such a way that it is not responsible for the sharp division within the political parties, when by definition gerrymander is when politicians change or manipulate the boundaries of their voting districts in order to benefit themselves or their political party.  According to The Monkey Cage blog the author does not believe this is the reason behind the rising polarization in Congress, if politicians being able to manipulate districts is not the cause, then what would the reason for it? 

I chose this section of the article because it seems that gerrymandering is a hot topic in terms of its responsibility and the role it plays in Congress. For example, "to give your opponents a small number of safe seats, while drawing yourself a larger number of seats that are not quite as safe, but that you can expect to win comfortably." If a party is able to demonstrate such a huge dominance, than this is unfair especially for the other parties since there is no guarantee that they can or will regain control. For something so concrete, political, balanced, and important as our government it seems as though with gerrymandering everything is up in the air without no promise and main control lies within the politicians boundaries. Ultimately, I agree with The Monkey Cage blog because there would have to be more then just gerrymandering to determine the congressional districts.