California’s Prop 50 aims to tip the balance of power in Congress

Proposition 50, the only statewide measure on California's November ballot, is about the balance of power in Congress.

It would redraw the lines of California's 52 Congressional districts, in an effort to get Democrats five more seats in the U.S. House.

Now, there's a word for this: it's called gerrymandering. That word was coined more than 200 years ago, when Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts signed a law to create a twisty, winding district that looked kind of like a salamander. A political cartoon portrayed the proposed district as an especially menacing salamander, with sharp claws and a pointed tongue, and proclaimed it a "Gerry-mander," giving birth to a new word. (You can't make this stuff up.)

Prop 50 unabashedly asks voters to approve partisan gerrymandering of Californi