Greetings! My name is Shannon Schmidt, and I am working with MIT Radius this academic year. I am currently a degree candidate for a Master’s of Theological Studies in Religion, Ethics, and Politics at Harvard, and my vocational background is in political campaigning and interfaith political activism.

I am very excited to contribute to the powerful, meaningful dialogue which Radius inspires and promotes at MIT, and I look forward to contributing to the blog as programs and events arise.

For most anyone who has experience in political campaigns and has thus spent time talking to ambivalent or reluctant voters, variations on this one question tend to have particular salience: Why should I care what happens in politics when all politicians are corrupt and none of them actually represent me?

If you have campaigned for a particular party, you might meet this question with a succinct, sometimes scripted case to make for your party’s stance on a range of issues. You might assert that your party is, indeed, the best possible representation of your community’s values. After hearing your pitch, the voter might or might not be convinced.

But what does it mean to represent a community's values?

I think it is fairly easy for most of us to agree that it is morally distorted for elected officials to draw districts with the sole purpose of playing to their own party’s electoral advantage and minimizing the influence of groups outside of their party.

However beneath the surface of the topic of gerrymandering are questions which require more nuanced consideration, questions like:

What does it mean to be politically represented? What is just political representation?

On its face, political representation can be equated to how much the decision making and behavior of an elected representative reflect a given community’s values. However, this definition assumes relative unanimity amongst members of a community and fails to account for internal contradictions and fragmentations. Further, it might assume that being politically represented is the same, or vastly similar, to being pleased with the election of candidates from a given political party.

One question which then arises is this: is political representation, or lack thereof, simply a measure of our satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the outcome of elections?

When state legislators manipulate the arrangement of districts in such a way that the influence of the voter is drastically reduced, the matter of defining ‘political representation’ is taken out of the hands of constituents. This is complicated by the political location of those actors in whom redistricting is entrusted. State legislators, by virtue of their election, are supposed to be mediators of public interest, but often have partisan agendas of their own.

Your ambivalent, reluctant voter makes a good point - a concession we would never make on the campaign trail. If we are going to engage meaningfully with matters of redistricting and gerrymandering, it is vital that we simultaneously hold a place for dialogue on what it means for a state legislator, or a party, to represent the people.

I look forward to engaging on these pressing matters with Professor Duchin at our lunchtime program on Wednesday, and learning how we can become better equipped to inspire dialogue on the issues surrounding redistricting in our own communities.