Gerrymandering and Other Sundry Matters

Yes, dear readers, you get me for a bonus posting because of Madame’s absence. 

How ironic that past times, when we arguably required little momentous legislation, we still got it.  Yet, now, when we require it desperately, we get a do-nothing, seized-up legislature.

Much of that comes from gerrymandering, the drawing of each federal Congressional district by partisan state legislatures to virtually ensure that one-party controls each seat.  This, along with other facilitators, has led to ideological rigidity and extreme selfishness, and, of course, easy service to plutocrats.  

Without Constitutional amendment, that isn’t going to change.  Along with a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and remove some of the extreme power of corporations and billionaires to influence our elections and elected officials, there’s a Congressional reform amendment needed.

What we need is an expansion to the proposed Norris Amendment to the Constitution.  This would do several important things:

1.     Abolish partisan caucuses in the Senate.

2.     Reform the Senate filibuster, and how it may be used.

3.     Curb influence of corporate and special interest money, and make transparent, known, and accountable what money there is and where it comes from.

4.     Make Congressional districts within states be demographically and geographically drawn by integrated computer models that allocate population near equally within those states, and that begin with the largest population centers and concentrically expand outward to take in more communities until the population division is met.  All that state legislatures would be permitted to do is make adjustments on the margins where the circles would otherwise overlap.  This meets the original intent of the Framers to have Congressional districts represent equal population sizes (understanding, of course, that some states that only get one representative due to small population size will not be able to meet this objective).

The tools to get back the republic the Framers made possible for us do exist.  A movement must grow and swell in order for those tools to become effected reality.  And it starts with information and discussion.