Ideally we need an amendment to the US Constitution which requires that redistricting in all states be done by a nonpartisan, independent group appointed jointly by all parties with seats in a state's legislature. The independent redistricting group should be required to propose a map which has the most compact equally populated districts possible which to the extent possible do not divide cities or communities with similar interests. Ideally a computer based system should be used to do this. Preserving seats of incumbents or maximizing the number of seats held by a given party should not be a factor.

This reform needs to be done on the federal level so the Democrats in Maryland, for example, don't feel the need to Gerrymander to offset the Gerrymandering by Republicans in other states. In the absence of reform at the federal level, we should at least have this kind of reform in Maryland. Our districts should be fairly drawn even if other states' are not.

My alternate fix to this would be to add a crapload more offices to the House of Representatives. The original House had like 1 to every 10,000 people or something, and now we're closer to like 1 to every 100,000 or so. Not sure on exact numbers, but we've been at 535 reps. for over a century now, and the population has grown immensely.

Sure, it'd seem like chaos to have that many people trying to make laws, but in reality, that's the point of the House. It would make actual representatives be closer to their constituents, and makes it a lot harder to gerrymander districts when you just don't have that much space. Even if some are gerrymandered, the others will cancel out.

It follows the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle, and fits the basic design of the country without a bunch of complications, when tend to lead to loopholes, which lead to exploitation, etc. I'd also like to see our voting systems change to something that favors having more than two nearly identical parties, but that's for another time.

Esther, thanks for educating us about Question 5! The Atlantic published a great article on gerrymandering practices in the US (here is a link to an online article on this subject: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/the-twisted-history-of-gerrymandering-in-american-politics/262369/).

Isn't anyone going to call Delegate Gutierrez on her vile comment? "In each new district, minority proportional representation is so diminished as to make it nearly impossible to elect minority candidates in Congress over the next 10 years."

...er because white people only vote for white candidates? Really? As someone of European extraction, I grew up in a city whose mayor was Hispanic then followed by an African American mayor. In both cases, these men were elected and re-elected with a LARGE swath of the white vote. You may have noticed our President is of African descent, elected with, yes, you guessed it, a large block of white voters. The Montgomery county executive, Ike Legget, is also a black man. Mr. Legget has won two BLOWOUT elections for that job in a county that is 64% white.

According to Ms. Gutierrez, this is impossible. Because minority leadership will only be elected by minority voters in her view. I think Ms. Gutierrez is a dinosaur, stuck playing the same old race-baiting tribalistic us-vs-them games from the 1960s and has far too little respect for or faith in the people of our state. Either that, or she's afraid of a genuine election competition where she will have to compete on vision and achievements rather than a "vote-for-me-becasue-I-look-like-you" strategy.

Time to grow up Ms. Gutierrez.

right on grass seed, it is funny as I watch all these democrats in the tv commercials tell the public that, politicans never do as they say they are going to, or the money never seems to show up, well amybe the people that are saying it should stop voting for the party that never delivers what the ysay, just like the man in the white house was going to cut the deficit in half but gave us 6 trillion in new debt, was going to be the most transparent administration, but has been the worst when it comes to giving information being asked from the freedom of information act. all the ycan ever place is the race card and nobody ever rebuts them because they will be callled a racist. the intteligent in the country know the democratic party is the party of racist, and race baiting.

How can there be so many jerks in this state? This was not about Dems vs Reps, it was about disenfranchisement and too much power in the hands of people we didn't vote for! Very disappointed. It's an embarrassment being "the most gerrymandered state in the US".

It's time for an amendment instituting term limits for MD legislators!