(Mis)Representations by Gerry Mander

“The Daily Show’s” Jason Jones discusses the “art” of gerrymandering with redistricting consultant Kimball Brace, a man who won’t stop drawing ludicrous new districts even after he’s run the country into the ground. Gerrymandering, one of the factors that has made the 113th Congress the least productive in the history of the United States, is the process by which districts are determined through partisan tendencies rather than by population. This results in elaborately drawn outlines that cluster certain people together (often ethnic groups) and has led to an extreme form of “job security” in Congress. With just 35 out of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives representing true “swing” districts, gerrymandering has created an environment in which elected officials care little about their constituents because they’re unafraid to lose their spot in Washington.

The only thing left to do is honor artists like Kimball Brace with a gallery exhibit that shows how he uses color (Jones and Brace discuss the consultant’s use of “brown,” in other words, Hispanics) to change the face of American politics.

If seeing the designs framed on stark white canvases doesn’t highlight the absurdity of it all, nothing will.

—Posted by Natasha Hakimi