经济学人下载:重新划分选区之争

Redistricting rows
重新划分选区之争

Not so easy
并不容易

Republican hopes of snagging extra seats following last year’s census look doomed to disappointment
共和党人想要通过去年的人口普查数据再获得一些新席位,不大可行

May 5th 2011 | AUSTIN, TEXAS | from the print edition

..REDISTRICTING, so the old saying goes, is when politicians get to choose their voters. Every ten years, following the national census, each state must redraw the constituency boundaries for both its members of Congress and its state legislators. In most states, the party in power controls both those processes, either directly through the state legislature or indirectly through the appointment of members to commissions charged with the job.

老话讲，重新划分选区就是政治家选择投票者。每隔十年，在全国人口普查之后，各个州要为国会代表以及州立法委员重划选区界限。在大部分州，执政的党派决定着选区界限的划定，或直接通过州立法机关、或间接地通过指派人员处理这项事务。

The whole business has been riven with conflicts of interest for at least two centuries. This time around, though, Republicans are in charge in far more states than Democrats, so should be able to weight the political odds in their favour for the next decade. But that is proving trickier than normal, for a variety of reasons.

这项事务为利益冲突成为的焦点已经至少有两百年了。这一次，共和党执掌的州大大多于民主党，所以共和党应该会争取在接下来的十年时间里获得政治优势。不过，有许多原因导致情况非常复杂。