In the course of looking up this, I found a very good article about Gerrymandering which had an intriguing solution of how to get rid of this highly political practice. Not that anybody is going to act on it ... hell, the Illinois Supreme Court would not even consider the case which was brought to them regarding the 4th!
Here's that article:
http://www2.uiuc.edu/ro/observer/archive/vol11/issue5/gerry.html