Political Scene: Much is on the line as R.I. legislature prepares to redraw districts
For Rhode Island election reform advocates, the problem isn’t the firm that was hired to do the study, but the system that gives Assembly leaders effective control over the shape of their colleagues’ districts.
The Campaign Legal Center, an anti-gerrymandering think tank, estimated that in the 2016 election, gerrymandered district boundaries cost Republicans nine seats in the 113-seat Rhode Island General Assembly. (The Campaign Legal Center said it has not done a similar analysis for the 2018 election, which resulted in the current 14 Republican lawmakers.)