Almost A Good Idea To Fix The Congressional Gerrymandering Problem

Definition: Gerrymander - to divide a state, county or city into voting districts in order to almost guarantee the reelection of one party.

Step 14 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" is a critical step to regaining our freedom in that it sets down the reasons and the remedies needed to stop ensuring that House Of Representative politicians will almost always get reelected. By rigging the borders of the Congressional districts, politicians can configure Congressional districts that are predominately Republican or predominately Democrat, ensuring that that party will almost always get elected in that district.

The tragic outcome of this manipulation is that if you are a voter in a Congressional district that has been configured for the other major party, your vote will usually be meaningless since you have been lumped together with members supportive of the other party. For example, if you are a Democrat that happens to live in a Republican configured district, your Democrat leaning voting tendency will almost always be wiped out by all of the Republican voters you have been lumped together with. The converse holds true for a Republican in a Democratic district. When your vote is rendered useless by gerrymandering, your freedom has taken a significant hit.

Besides loss of individual freedom, the art of compromise and give and take in governing is lost. If you are a politician from a predominant Republican district, you are probably going to be a little more to the right than average in order to not alienate the large number of Republicans in your district. Any sign of weakness or giving in to the Democrats may signal that another Republican might better represent your district. Thus, "compromising" in order to find a solution is now viewed as "giving in" to the other side so compromise be damned. That may be one of the reasons why nothing is ever accomplished by the political class, the art of compromise has been gerrymandered out of existence.

Although I could not find the article online, I distinctly remember an article from a number of years ago that appeared in the Newark Star Ledger. The article laid out how the two wings of the New Jersey political class had gotten together and remapped the Congressional districts in order to guarantee that six of the thirteen districts would almost always be represented by a Republican and seven of the thirteen would almost always be represented by a Democrat. If you look at the map of New Jersey on page 55 of "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," you will see the contortions they went through to accomplish their goals and disenfranchise a large number of New jersey voters (i.e. Democrats in Republican districts and Republicans in Democratic districts).

• District 5, a Republican district, starts in the upper northeast corner of the state, continues all the way across the top of the state where it makes a left hand turn and comes down the western edge of the state, almost half down the entire length of the state.
• District 12, a Democratic district, crosses five New Jersey counties (almost 25% of all counties) and runs from the Delaware river on the western border all the way across the middle of the state to the Atlantic Ocean. During its journey across the state the district borders meandering up and down, left and right, all in order to get enough Democrats concentrated in that one district.
• Other districts, especially in the more populated northern part of the state, are just as illogical and contorted. The only logic being to guarantee that the incumbent party always wins.

I am not the only person who holds these views. In an article in the May 16, 2010 issue of Parade Magazine, "Making Elections Less 'Safe'", there was ALMOST a good idea for eliminating this encroachment on our voting freedom and rights. A Democratic Congressman, John Tanner, and a Republican Congressman, Michael Castle, have proposed the Redistricting Transparency Act. This legislation would require each state top establish a website through which citizens could track and comment on proposed redistricting before plans and maps are finalized. Sounds like a great idea but it will not work because:

1. Congressional district mapping has always been a state level responsibility so it is likely that some incumbent politician or group of incumbent politicians somewhere would take this Federal bill to court and argue state rights and that would tie up the issue for years in Federal court. The sad part is that they would probably win even though this is a noble attempt to get some visibility into the process.
2. The other reason it would fail is that there is no requirement that the existing set of office holding politicians do anything different than they have been doing for decades. Given their arrogance, it is highly doubtful that these people are going to listen to or obey any input that comes through the website, they are going to do what they want in order to preserve their political career and fiefdoms in office.

What is needed is the enactment of laws, not websites, that accomplish the following and which were laid out in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government":

• Voting districts should not include more than two counties unless two counties do not have enough population. This is to address the likes of District 12 in New Jersey that we discussed above.
• The widest geographic diameter of a district should be no more than three times the length of the smallest geographic dimensions. This would address situations like District 5 above where districts are stretched and twisted in order to get the right mix.
• Finally, no member of the political class, past or present, should be involved in drawing up the districts. Several suggestions on who should do this are listed in the book, but any former or current member of the political class has to be left out of the mapping function.

All votes in America should carry the same weight, something that does not happen today with the loaded Congressional districts we have allowed to happen.

I close this posts with two quotes, the first of which neatly summarizes the problem we have in America today relative to gerrymandering and the loss of voting rights and freedom: "The idea is to encourage more fairly drawn, competitive districts so that voters choose their politicians, rather than politicians choosing their voters." - Gerald Heber, Campaign Legal Center as quoted in the Parade Magazine article.

On a less optimistic note, consider this quote form Matt Bai in the New York Times Magazine as it appeared in the March 19, 2010 issue of The Week Magazine: "Most of the 535 Senators and members of Congress are forced to choose, constantly, between their constituents and their own self-preservation. Is it really so outside the bounds of human nature to expect Congressman to serve the interests of voters, even when their own re-elections are in jeopardy? The political system is imperiled mostly because too many politicians just can't seem to imagine any worse fate than losing an election. A lot of lawmakers still cling to their seats at any cost to conscience or to constituency, as if it were the only job they could ever see themselves holding." That is why the Redistricting Transparency Act is ALMOST a good idea. As Mr. Bai elegantly points out, sitting politicians will do anything to hang onto their jobs and gerrymandering is the primary way to satisfy that need. They are not going to easily give up that tool in their re-election kit, it will have to be taken from them forcibly.

Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.