A friend messaged me the other day asking my opinion on California’s ballot initiative Proposition 50, which temporarily suspends the independent commission responsible for drawing the state’s Congressional districts in order to allow a directed gerrymander before next year’s off-cycle elections.
I favored and voted for the measure, though I did deem it something I wished I had the opportunity and freedom to oppose. I despise gerrymandering. It is the process where politicians choose their voters rather than the voters choosing their representative. Under normal circumstances, voting against Prop 50 would have been nearly automatic for me.
These are not normal circumstances.
Even before last week’s elections blew fear into the hearts of Republicans, they sensed the anger in the electorate and, given the history of off-cycle elections, knew that their position of power had become precarious. Rather than adjust their policies in hopes of persuading voters to trust them, Trump demanded that Texas redistrict to carve out five new seats deemed “safe” for the GOP, a bid to keep their grip on government.
It is unwise to go into a duel where your opponent has brought a pistol when you had agreed to swords and not change your choice of weapons. California’s abandonment of its commission was tossing aside the sword to pick up a pistol.
However necessary, it is still gerrymandering—manipulating the maps to dramatically influence the outcome of an election, a concept that is at its heart anti-democratic. I would prefer that the nation find a way to kill the process of gerrymandering in all states, but one cannot fight by “gentlemen’s rules” when the other side insists on being small-handed barbarians.
I would also consider it terribly important that the size of the House be expanded. Here is a graph showing that while US population has swelled, the House has been fixed for over a century, compounding our troubles.
