There is encouraging news about US political gerrymandering and the damage it does to politics, the country and democracy. Several states are trying to do something about the gerrymandering and the hyperpartisanship it causes, by changing the way congressional districts are drawn and the way elections are held. Their goal: Force members of Congress to pay more attention to general election voters more than to their base voters on the right or left.

At the moment the redistricting process occurs once every 10 years after a census and is done by politicians in smoke-filled rooms. But several states are trying to change that. In North Carolina, a 50/50 state with 9 Republican and only 4 Democratic Party seats, a bill is before the legislature that would take redistricting out of the hands of politicians and put it into the hands of professional staff who would be forbidden from drawing those districts for political purposes. Population, not political affiliation, would be the only criteria.(Adapted and precised from an NPR article on November 19th, 2013)

In England there is a non-partisan Electoral Commission that sets constituency boundaries using population as the criterion. Politicians have no direct influence over the outcome, and gerrymandering as a word is only now used in conjunction with the American political system.

Epicureanism stands for fairness and the ability of the man in the street to get together with others to right wrongs and have his views represented. Gerrymanderers of either party have lost all remaining moral authority.