Since 1812, the term gerrymandering has been part of the corrupt politicians playbook. Then Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed into law a redistricting bill to favor his own party. One of the resulting districts was said to resemble a salamander. This word combined with the Governor's last name led to the coining of the term gerrymander. The corrupt political process itself came to be known as gerrymandering.
Following are a couple of excerpts from a related article.
From the Jacksonville, Texas Daily Progress
The increased population of Texas has triggered a need to redistrict in order to ensure that each district has the same population. The new populations are listed below:
Each of the 150 House districts must have a population of 167,637.
Each of the 31 Senate districts must have a population of 811,147.
Each of the 36 congressional districts must have a population of 698,488.
“About 50 percent of the entire state lives up and down the I-35 corridor. So that’s from the Red River in Oklahoma down to Laredo, which has got Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, Austin, San Antonio,” he said. “Twenty-five percent of the people in the state live in Houston. Another twenty-five percent of the people live elsewhere in the state.”
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