In today's intense political climate you get used to hearing a lot about the same issues, (immigration, healthcare, gun control, etc.) and don't get me wrong those are all really important, but there is one underlying practice that shapes our national policy and influences our federal government. Gerrymandering. It's not exactly catchy, and even more it is a malicious practice to manipulate votes and silence certain viewpoints. Basically its cheating, and there are no rules against it.
There are 435 seats in The House of Representatives, and each of those seats represent the interests of a district. These districts are defined by arbitrary lines which just happened to drawn by the party who is already in power. For example here in Texas, Austin (a relatively small area compared to the size of the state) is split up into more than 12 districts, splitting apart the more liberal voice of austin and over-representing rural areas which are predominately conservative. Democrats and Republicans alike are guilty of this mischief. Either side could manipulate districts to reflect political leanings that benefit their own causes even if that wasn't a true representation of the people in that area.
I think the best solution to this problem is to implement The Shortest Splitline Method. I wont get into the specifics but basically it is an effective, non-partisan way to divide up districts in a way that is a more true to life representation of the views of the citizens in a area. It is a way that everyone's voice can be heard. For better or worse, it would be more fair. That's a big part of Democracy, or so I've heard? This country needs to be fairly represented, whatever happens after that is our own fault.
Implementing the shortest split-line method would create a more impartial system. The problem is putting that into practice when the people who write laws benefit greatly from the current system. The first step would need to be creating awareness amongst eligible voters, but as you noted at the beginning of your post, there are other really important issues that need to be addressed, issues that are much more attention grabbing than how we divide up voting districts. The only way I could see people actually caring about gerrymandering is if we directly connect it to their quality of life in a way that not even the most ignorant Americans can deny. If anyone has an idea for how to do this please let me know, because fixing gerrymandering would lay the groundwork for fixing non-partisanship and gridlock in congress which would let us truly address other issues such as immigration and healthcare in a way that represents the will of the people.
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