Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Redistricting

Out here in California we're talking about redistricting. Yes, the proposition went up in flames, and maybe it should have. But, the problem still exists. My state happens to gerrymander mostly toward Democratic control, while others go the conservative route.

The point is, neither one is correct. I'm all for reasonably contiguous boundaries in the districts and let the chips fall where they may. Right now, my district runs from the SF Bay area all the way east in a narrow strip to the Nevada border. The more conservative voters east of me outnumber the more liberal voters, so I never get the person I vote for as my representative. And worse yet, the people in my congressional district don't share much in common, making it a given that my representative represents only the more conservative crowd east of me.

That is not representative government. I want redistricting removed from the legislature and given to a panel of some sort. Or maybe we need nothing more than a computer program to lay the districts out so equal numbers of people in contiguous geographic areas are developed. I could live with that.

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