The Pennsylvania Supreme Court handed down its new set of congressional district lines on Monday, replacing those drawn by Republicans after they captured the state legislature in 2010. The state’s highest court had earlier ruled those lines unconstitutional. The new map, The Times’s Nate Cohn said, “comes very close to achieving partisan balance.” Republicans, who held a big advantage under the old lines, plan to challenge the new ones in federal court. It’s a huge fight, with enormous ramifications. But as they argue over what lines should go where, I ask you to consider a more fundamental question: Why have lines at all?
You’re thinking: “Why have lines? Because we have to! We have to have congressional districts!”
Well, yes, under current law we do. But Congress can change that law. And in our deeply polarized age, there’s an argument to be made that we might be better off if it did so.
There is nothing in the Constitution that says we have to have congressional districts. Article 1, Section 2, says merely that “the House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states.” No particular method is prescribed.
Full Article: Who Needs Congressional Districts? – The New York Times.