Solutions

I kinda lost interest in following the current events and posting my opinions about them. Mine is just one opinion in thousands posted daily in blogs and nobody really cares. So, instead of trying to attract readers with posts on current events I'm just going to post my views on various issues.


First up is regarding re-districting. This is the process that occurs every ten years or so after the census when the number of seats each state gets in the House is redistributed to adjust for population shifts and growth. In an ideal world this would be an easy process in which each state calmly and intelligently redraws the district lines in as close to geometric shapes as possible. However, because of the tendency of certain types of housing (ie burbs, cities, rural) tend to vote certain ways this process has been turned on its head and become a backstreet brawl in which the party in power tries to jerry-rig the district lines in an effort to safeguard as many seats for their party as possible. Areas that are strongly for the minority party are concentrated so as to limit their influence. In my state of Virginia this was most recently done by the Republicans, although the Democrats were guilty when they were in power.

So what should be done about it? Independent committees should be charged with drawing up the lines according to strict guidelines. Race, income level and party affiliations should be ignored. The lines should be drawn in a way to make each district a square or rectangular shape. Many districts now have legs or arms extending out from the main body in an attempt to maintain the party in power. If these appendiges were banned a map of the districts in a state might look more like a set of blocks, than some kind of insane jigsaw puzzle. Only when some sanity is brought back to this process can the people truly be represented fairly.