Rep. Calvert's District One of the Most Gerrymandered in Country: Washington Post

TEMECULA - Notice anything odd about this district? Rep. Ken Calvert’s own website describes his district as encompassing “a portion of Temecula.” Residents of Temecula have their power of representation divided - the other part of Temecula is represented by Rep. Duncan Hunter. Both congressmen are Republicans.

The Washington Post analyzed congressional districts nationwide and scored them on how gerrymandered they are -- districts drawn for the purpose of giving a political edge to one party.

How did they come up with the score? According to the Post,

The compactness of a district -- a measure of how irregular its shape is, as determined by the ratio of the area of the district to the area of a circle with the same perimeter -- can serve as a useful proxy for how gerrymandered the district is. Districts that follow a generally regular shape tend to be compact, while those that have a lot of squiggles and offshoots and tentacle-looking protuberances tend to score poorly on this measure.

The amoeba-shaped district of Rep. Calvert is roughly x-shaped, drawn to exclude geographical chunks of Riverside County. It earned a gerrymandered score of 88.96, placing it in the highest category that starts at 85 percent.

California as a whole didn’t score much better, earning a score of 76.81.

--Map via WikiMedia