Redistricting happens after each U.S. Census. Iowa lost one congressional district in 2013 based on the results of the 2010 Census; before that, Iowa had five districts. Today, we have four.
During this hour of River to River, host Ben Kieffer talks with David Daley, former editor-in-chief of Salon magazine who has written about redistricting, and Tracy Osborn, an associate professor of political science and director of the Politics and Policy Program at the University of Iowa.
According to Daley, Iowa's redistricting process is "a unicorn" in that it's a non-partisan process.
"These lines are really the building blocks of our democracy," says Daley. "If they get used for partisan politics, it twists the will of the voters."