This blog has repeatedly criticised political gerrymandering and the damage it does to politics, the country and democracy.
But there’s encouraging news. 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 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 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.
Athens, for a brief moment in time, was able to run a democracy for all the people. 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. Gerrymandering undermines freedom.
Comment:
California, for instance, enacted a reform aimed at limiting hyper-partisanship called the “top-two primary”. Under the system, just one open primary is held in each congressional district. All of the candidates are on the ballot: Republican, Democrat, third party. Any registered voter can participate, and the top two candidates go on to the general election. The system is quite new, but it is hoped that it will do away with political dependence on the narrow partisan base that politicians are dependent upon for reelection, and give them space to do deals across the aisle.
( 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 one criterion: population movements. It is not without its critics who point out that not all constituencies have similar numbers of electors. On the other hand politicians have no direct influence over the outcome, and gerrymandering as a word is only now used in conjunction with the American political system.