Ready, set, draw: the 2010 census means redistricting is almost here, and changes in the process could make it even tougher this time around.

• Author: Storey, Tim
• Position: Cover story

A raft trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon is a magnificent adventure that exposes passengers to a natural grandeur carved over millions of years.

River guides tell stories about the canyon that touch on hydraulics, geology, botany, history, zoology and culture. What you're not likely to hear, however, is a story about why boats floating through the middle section of the Grand Canyon are in Arizona's 2nd Congressional District while the shore on either side is in the 1st Congressional District.

Arizona's U.S. House District 2 starts in suburban Phoenix and goes west in a narrow band to the border with California, where it stretches north in a broad swath through rural Arizona all the way to Utah. The district then heads east along the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in a thin tendril to connect to the relatively large Hopi Indian nation in northeast Arizona.

The Hopi land is surrounded entirely by Navajo territory, which is in the 1st Congressional District. In 2002, in public hearings before the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, which drew the map, draft versions of the district were compared to a flying giraffe and an ostrich. But in the end, one of the strangest shaped districts in the country was adopted because it addressed strong concerns from Hopi leaders that they did not want to be in the same district as the much larger Navajo tribe, with whom they have a smoldering land dispute dating back well over a century.

Anyone who has been through the redistricting process recognizes the complexity of trying to balance numerous concerns while complying with strict federal and state laws.

To the outsider it may seem that drawing new congressional and legislative district plans is one dimensional: It's all about gerrymandering. The term stems from the practice of drawing districts so they favor one party or the other. It came into the lexicon in the early 19th century when backers of Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry drew part of a state Senate plan to favor Gerry's party. A cartoonist added wings and a reptilian head to the district plan that a clever newspaper editor dubbed the gerrymander.

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Odd-looking districts, however, also can reflect difficult choices and compromises. Arizona's District 2 is an example of drawing a district that is balanced in population and fairly represents different communities, such as the Hopi and the Navajo. And yes, politics is involved, too.

COUNTING US UP

In just over a year, legislators across the country will be grappling with this redrawing that rolls around every 10 years following the census. The U.S. Constitution requires all local, state and federal legislative districts to be redrawn after a census is taken to make the districts roughly equal in population, guaranteeing that each...