Who was Gerry Mander?

Sad to say but every so often you get set in your ways, turn off the gray cells and ignore the obvious. If you’re lucky, someone will bring you back to reality. In my case, the subject was gerrymandering and the someone who forced me to look at the issue was my youngest son, Greg.

As you know, I live in a Democratic state. In general, our Congressmen have been fairly decent. And, truth be told, I can’t recall a Republican for whom I would have voted; the candidates offered up by the GOP have been lackluster. But, who can blame them? Would anybody really capable run when the chances of winning are infinitesimal because the opposition has stacked things in its favor?

The problem is not unique to our little state. It is now part and parcel of our national political system. I think that there were only five incumbent congressmen who lost this time, and three of them were gerrymandered out of their safe seats in Texas. This is not a way to get the best people to represent us. Nor is it a way to preserve our tri-partite system of executive, legislative and judicial branches.

That something needs to be done is starting to be recognized by people on both sides of the political spectrum. Just last week The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial on the subject. On the other side of the aisle, the people at fairvote.org are also proselytizing for an impartial commission to define the congressional districts in each state. Of course, it is assumed that this commission would also draw the lines for the state representatives as well.

Iowa and, I think, Washington have already done something about this and appointed a nonpartisan group to define district boundaries. More states need to follow.

I know that the electoral reforms I’ve advocated over the last month – changing the electoral college, one six-year term for the president and an end to gerrymandering – seem like pie in the sky today. But, many of the ideas that seemed like pie in the sky yesterday have become today’s accepted way of doing things.