Stop All Midterm Redistricting

No matter your team. it's undermining democracy

I want the Democrats to win the midterm elections by a landslide in November, in order to stop Donald Trump and his minions from destroying Democracy as completely as possible. Earlier this spring, the voters of Virginia narrowly approved a redistricting plan that was designed to convert the state’s present House delegation of six Democrats and five Republicans into a 12-1 Democratic delegation.

But last week, the supreme court of Virginia ruled 4-3 that the new redistricting plan was illegal and threw it out, and across America, Democrats and their allies were dismayed. I wasn’t. It was the right thing to do. Constantly redrawing district lines for partisan advantage erodes and destroys democracy and representative government.

I am very aware that Texas redrew their district boundaries to elect more Republicans to Congress in November, and that California did the same to produce more Democrats. Other states are trying to do the same, one way or another.

But this is wrong, period. Yes, I am aware that many, many states have severely gerrymandered districts designed to produce partisan advantage. Yet this always has a problem and a political fact of life. However, election districts are supposed to be drawn just once a decade, based on the last census.

The original gerrymander

So will all these states redraw their lines again in two years, or when party control of their legislatures change? Many, probably most people will soon have no idea what district they live in, something that will destroy whatever remaining trust in the system they have. Do we want that?

There is a solution to all this. Notice you haven’t heard any talk of the politicians redistricting Michigan this year? That’s because they can’t. Ten years ago, we were one of the worst gerrymandered states in the country. Now, we are one of nine states whose district boundaries are set by an independent redistricting commission that is supposed to be free from partisan influence.

They may not do their job perfectly, but they try. This is what every state should have, at least every state that has more than two members of Congress.

Representative democracy, as if you didn’t know, is already in peril. We have to do everything we can not to weaken it further, and the redistricting madness has to stop.