Gerrymandering

From Ryan Lizza’s upcoming New Yorker profile on Obama:

One day in the spring of 2001, about a year after the loss to Rush, Obama walked into the Stratton Office Building, in Springfield, a shabby nineteen-fifties government workspace for state officials next to the regal state capitol. He went upstairs to a room that Democrats in Springfield called “the inner sanctum.” Only about ten Democratic staffers had access; entry required an elaborate ritual—fingerprint scanners and codes punched into a keypad. The room was large, and unremarkable except for an enormous printer and an array of computers with big double monitors. On the screens that spring day were detailed maps of Chicago, and Obama and a Democratic consultant named John Corrigan sat in front of a terminal to draw Obama a new district.  [emphasis mine] 

Though in February of 2006, Obama had this to say about gerrymandering at a Brookings Insititure speech on election reform:

“In too many districts today, people’s votes probably won’t make a difference,” Obama said. “As a consequence of the gerrymandering of redistricting, people aren’t being illogical when they stay home because the outcome is a foregone conclusion.”

I need to look into this a little further.  I don’t mean to suggest that Obama having a district drawn for him (which happens all of the time) necessarily represents a gerrymander, but there’s always something a little unsavory about tailor-made districts.