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July 23, 2005
Express on Gerrymandering
The San Antonio Express News has a good editorial today about the need to fix gerrymandering. Even though I thought what the Texas Republicans did to the Texas Democrats with the recent mid-decade redistricting was quite funny and a just payback for decades of abuse of the gerrymander by Texas Democrats, I still do not like gerrymandering. House races need to be reasonably competitive for the government to remain accountable to the people. I do not like the idea of congress saying how states should determine districts (as the editorial advocates) because congress could too easily abuse this authority by requiring gerrymandering instead. State legislatures need to be responsible and do this job themselves.
Here is the editorial:
Aside from the partisan acrimony, the current method of redistricting creates a stunningly uncompetitive political environment. Politicians stack and pack voters into safe districts for both Republicans and Democrats.Outside of Texas, where four incumbent Democrats were targeted in redistricting and defeated, only three of 399 congressional incumbents who ran for re-election lost their seats last November.
There is a better way. A handful of states already have independent commissions that take redistricting out of the hands of partisan, elected officials. State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, has been a tireless advocate for this approach in Texas.
Tanner's proposal in Congress would make independent redistricting commissions the law of the land. Among the 36 bipartisan co-sponsors of his measure, astonishingly not one is from Texas.
Posted by Pete at July 23, 2005 05:33 PM
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