One of the methods Egypt’s former strongman, Hosni Mubarak, employed to stay in power — aside from torture, summary executions and de-friending on Facebook — was denying the opposition access to the ballot. If you were a threat to either win the election or allow voters to express dissatisfaction with the regime, your name was not listed.Often Egyptian elections presented voters with a choice of Mubarak or leaving the ballot blank.
Right now I’m trying to decide if there is a difference between Mubarak’s ballot strategy and our domestic redistricting where legislative and Congressional districts are drawn to protect incumbents and make it almost impossible for a challenger to win.
It’s hardly a “free and fair election” when the outcome is predetermined by the lines drawn in smoke–free backrooms. Instead, most voters are presented with a choice between a candidate running in a district custom designed for him or voting for an alternative who’s unknown, unloved and unable to win.
In Virginia, Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw (D–Gerrymander) explains, “The House does theirs. The Senate does theirs. And I'm not gonna interfere with the lines the House draws for the House. And they're not gonna interfere with the lines I draw for the Senate. …our goal is to make the Democratic districts, particularly the marginal ones, a little bit better than they are now.”
Allowing incumbent politicians to design their own districts is a conflict of interest on a par with asking Sen. John Ensign to look in on your wife while you’re out of town.
Redistricting has become the process where politicians pick the voters most likely to return them to office for the next decade.
Currently in the Virginia’s Republican–controlled House of Delegates, political cartographers are designing legislative districts that come November will protect GOP incumbents who are team players. In the Democrat–controlled Senate, the situation is reversed.
Incumbent Congressmen are safe, too. A plan that harms Republican incumbents won’t pass the House and vice versa for Democrats in the Senate.
Consequently, one of the proposed maps has the 5th Congressional district, currently occupied by freshman Robert Hurt (R), extending vertically 200 miles from the North Carolina border and ending one county short of Maryland.
Prince William County, which should be contained within a single district, is sectioned three ways between Frank Wolf, Gerry Connolly and Rob Wittman. Wolf and Wittman get the Republicans, Connolly gets the Democrats and voters who would prefer a change get a surprise.
It’s a source of great frustration that the redistricting alternative to “FOX CORPORATION: Securing Hen Houses Nationwide” is no guarantee of unbiased cartography either.
Fresh off his success with the ABC stores, Gov. Bob McDonnell decided to try privatizing redistricting. He appointed an independent, bipartisan redistricting commission to offer an alternative plan. Evidently the worthies he appointed were aware the commission was an exercise in futility, so they decided not to personally invest a lot of time in deliberations.
Instead the commission outsourced the heavy lifting to George Mason University Professor Michael McDonald. But McDonald is an activist closely associated with the Brennan Center, a left–wing advocacy group that specializes in election issues. His first design priority was producing at least five majority–minority districts in the state Senate and 12 in the House of Delegates.
Hmmm. It seems the ballot box good ‘ol boys who dominate US elections can somehow manage to elect a black President and Virginia can give Obama a majority over a war hero, but the only way a black Delegate or Congressman can be elected is through affirmative action in whites–need–not–apply districts.
Once his color–conscious state districts were drawn, McDonald then produced his Congressional map, and guess what? Professor McDonald had four incumbent GOP Congressmen no longer living in their districts. Which proves that either McDonald is hyper–partisan or those Democrats sure know their real estate.
As Saslaw — of all people — commented, “You can redistrict fairly without forcing half the members of the General Assembly and Congress to put For Sale signs in their yards.”
I’m a conservative and I oppose gerrymandered districts because it implies a lack of faith in your own philosophy. If Republicans truly believe their limited government platform is best for Virginia, then lets make the case during a genuinely competitive election and persuade voters, rather than gaming the system. If we lose on Election Day, so be it.
The office belongs to the people and not the politician.
In the meantime I’m open to suggestion for disinterested parties who can draw the maps. So far all I’ve come up with is hiring the guy who does the Powerball drawing.
Image Courtesy of DayLife - Anti-Hosni Mubarak protesters deface a picture of him after clashing with pro-Mubarak demonstrators in downtown Cairo, Eygpt.
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|