.

Today the state of Virginia votes to gerrymander the hell out of its Congressional districts, taking the current map of 11 districts from a 6 for the Democratic party and 5 for the Republican party to a 10 for the Democrats leaving just a single district that favors the GOP.  It is the latest front on the mid-cycle redistricting war that has raged across the nation since the GOP operating under their total fealty to Trump began redrawing districts in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri, and potentially Florida, hoping to staunch the bleeding to come with this fall’s general election. Unwilling to simply lie back and take it, the Democratic party across the United States has redrawn maps where they possessed the power to do so, in California going to the voters with a special election as is the case in Virginia today.

Gerrymandering is a perversion of the basic principles of democracy. Instead of the voters choosing and electing their representatives the representative, sitting on a treasure trove of data, draw their electoral maps, choosing the voters that will most likely elect them to their seats. In the age of networked computers and artificial intelligence growing quickly in capabilities, the drawing of election maps that can accurately and reliably produce desired outcomes transforms from an arcane art into a sinister science.

With the Supreme Court of the United States having declared that gerrymandering for blatantly political purposes as ‘non-justiciable’, that is beyond the scope of any court, the floodgates were not thrown open on the process; the entire dam was demolished.

I have, for decades, been an opponent of the gerrymander. The process deeply offends my sense of what is right and what is wrong, but with that said I am also a realist. The Republicans, have fewer spines that an amoeba, supplicating themselves to a conman, a criminal, and sexual abuser giving away any remaining elements of honor and moved the conflict from a knife to a gunfight requiring the Democrats to drop their knife and match the warfare that is actually being waged.

I want Virginia to pass its constitutional amendment and fight fire with fire and then maybe in 2029 if we are fortunate enough to have a Democratic trifecta nationally pass legislation to end political gerrymandering once and for all.