• No matter our color, background or zip code, voters should pick their leaders, not the other way around.
   
• Redistricting has an incredible impact on states and the communities within them. It determines funding for public services like schools, roads, hospitals, and healthcare facilities.
  
  
• We come together every decade to draw new district lines that give each of our votes equal weight, each of our voices equal stature, and each of our communities access to equal resources that determine funds for schools, hospitals, and other essential services that our government allocates.
  
  
• Or at least, that is what’s supposed to happen. However, a handful of politicians in states across the country actively endeavor to rig the process, drawing districts to serve their political interests instead of our communities’ needs. 
• When we draw the maps, we influence the federal and state resources that funnel back to our communities -- money for hospitals, schools, and transportation.
  
  
• When we draw the maps, our communities don’t get carved up by politicians hungry for power, with only their own political interests in mind.
  
  
• When we draw the fair maps, our communities are represented by leaders who know us, who represent our needs, and fight for the resources that our children and families need in order to thrive.

Gerrymandering is a threat to equitable distribution of resources and the democracy that is the heartbeat of our country.

• Gerrymandering is the effort to draw congressional maps that provide advantages to one party or the other by aggregating communities which they think are likely to vote for their respective parties.
   
• You can also gerrymander by SPLITTING communities apart such that the voting power of an area is unfairly diluted, making residents a less consequential group come voting time.
   
• Both approaches have negative impacts on voting rights, diluting the influence of minority and/or marginalized communities, leaving them without effective representation in the halls of federal or state government. 

The fight for fair maps goes hand in hand with the struggle for voting rights. 

• Gerrymandering and unfair maps purposefully weaken the ability of communities to advocate for themselves.
  
  
• Politicians hungry for power work earnestly to carve up otherwise unified communities in order to preserve their own political power, while silencing the voices of communities in need, and reducing the collective funding for schools, roads and hospitals.
  

Here are some additional resources that might be helpful: 

• How Partisan Gerrymandering Hurts Kids | Center for American Progress
• The Problem | Prison Gerrymandering Project 
• Congressional Redistricting and Health: Yes, There is a Link | Blue Shield of California Foundation
• Common Cause: Gerrymandering and Representation

Nobody knows our communities better than the people who live in them.

• Whether we’re digging a neighbor out of the snow, cooking up a Sunday block party, or planting a neighborhood garden, nobody knows our communities better than the people who live in them.
  
  
• By joining together to speak out for fair districting, we can make our communities whole and deliver the resources our schools and families need for a decade to come. It’s our role as community leaders and members to inform the levers of power what our communities need.

These new maps will be used for the next 10 years and beyond, so it’s critical that our elected leaders and redistricting commissioners hear from us. 

Our collective action can make positive change and help shape this process, leading to better outcomes for our families and our community.  

• The United States is a unique country that offers tools of civic engagement to influence our public policy and debate; use the power you have a citizen to influence this process
  
  
• Call, email, tweet or write letters to your state legislators to insist on fairly drawn maps; demand transparency through the process
  
  
• Draft Letters to the Editors of your local media outlets attend public hearings on the matter and support those in your community who want to engage the process to make an impact

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