- Jun 6, 2007
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What are the most serious domestic problems America faces in our current times? Is it the escalating national debt whose trajectory one day probably in this generation's lifetime will cause the public to stop financing it! Is it an overly costly health insurance system which suppresses job and wage growth and leaves many Americans with too high a deductible causing them to forgo needed medical care? Is it America's uncompetitive corporate tax system that impedes widespread wealth growth? All these and a handful of other serious problems one could think of reveals clearly that our political system in America is dysfunctional for it cannot solve these major solvable problems! Political experts would diagnose this dysfunction more specifically as political gridlock and if they wanted to be more specific they would say, in part, the partisan drawing of voting districts or gerrymandering is a major cause. Gerrymandering creates an over allotment of voting districts across the nation that has a voter registration make-up heavily weighted toward one (dominant) political party which creates a body of elected officials that essentially only care about the viewpoint of the dominant party's voters in their district because their the ones that elect and reelect them. A by-product of this gerrymandering phenomena is the creation of a large number of hyper-partisan legislators in the state legislature and House of Representatives which makes America's political parties hyperpartisan because that is what these legislators want because such parties help them get reelected such parties make the respectuve legislator's voting base happy saying and doing what these voters want which creates a vicious cycles because then these hyperpartisan parties make their Senators and caucuses hyperpartisan resulting in entrenched partisan gridlock for the American people.
The great harm of gerrymandering is no surprise to the American people in truth this practice is accepted as a given in our society major political parties openly hold out as their goal being the majority party in the legislature come time of redrawing of districts so they can benefit their party in the redrawing. It is sad to say but accurate our current times on this issue are like the early 1800's on slavery and the early 1800's on women's lack of a right to vote American society just accepted these evils back then people talking about eliminating these realities were considered talking crazy! Frankly what should be considered is crazy is Americans accepting this "evil and unjust" system we consider ourselves champions for human rights and democracy throughout the world so we should have as our political system the best that human development can create not this "those in power get to stick it to those not in power" voting district creation system.
The American people should turn to an obvious tool to solve this problem a tool which is frequently seen in America's corporations when dividing America's population for specific purpose that being algorithms or formulas. Objective formulas along with protocols where there is no opening for political chicanery to influence the outcome could be used to draw districts. The process could begin drawing districts for the major cities in the state then move to rural areas. Equations could be used to divide major cities proportionally from a voter density standpoint, based on how many representatives need to have that city be part of their district. Equations could be used to identiy the population density center for a given area. Once a population density center is identified then just take a map that has the residences of each voter in the state plotted on it just move out street by street in equal proportions on each side from the center as you move out you'll increase the number of people variables and eventually you'll reach the total number of voters needed for a voting district and the perimeter streets are the borders of the district, of course, this would all be done by computers so error would be minimized. Obviously this is a thumbnail description of the solution, the body of protocols and formulas would need to be extensive but the idea is clear use objective standards so you take the political jockeying right out of the process. This algorithm based system could be used for drawing both Congressional and statewide voting districts for gerrymandering is a serious problem at both levels. Of course the U.S. constitution would have to be amended to change to this new system the gerrymandering problem is serious enough to warrant Americans want progress not gridlock. State's could still be left with a good amount of rights they could be left with the power to change the algorithms and protocols as long as two-thirds of each chamber of the legislature and the Governor agree with the changes.
Well-respected authorities that recognize that gerrymandering is causing great harm to America abound. Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has publicly spoken about it on numerous occasions in fact he calls for the following amendment to the constitution to be ratified to stop this evil: "Districts represented by members of Congress, or by members of any state legislative body, shall be compact and composed of contiguous territory. The state shall have the burden of justifying any departures from this requirement by reference to neutral criteria such as natural, political, or historic boundaries or demographic changes. The interest in enhancing or preserving the political power of the party in control of the state government is not such a neutral criterion.".
Numerous state governments across the nation have identified gerrymandering as a problem for they set-up nonpartisan committees (well at least that is the intent) to draw up voting districts when it needs to be done on a decade basis. Most interesting is that one of these arrangements, specifically that in Arizona, is the subject matter of a current major Supreme Court case. The basic issue in this case is that the Arizona legislature by law setup a committee comprised of two Democrats, two Republicans and one independent to draw up voting districts with the hope that this nonpartisan committee would design fair districts devoid of this gerrymandering evil; the specific legal issue is that the US Constitution mandates a state legislature set forth the voting district, a legislature delegating this task even for good reason to a committee arguably runs afoul of this mandate does anyone really think any state has a system where every member of the legislature is directly involved in drawing voting districts? Sad to say the consensus seems to be Arizona will lose this case, however they can probably overcome this loss by redoing the legislation and making this committee's work subject to the Arizona legislature's review. But even when state legislature's across the nation delegate creation of voting districts to "intended non-partisan" committees over the long term will the country see the elimination of this inordinately high number of party entrenched voting districts problem, No Way! Party leaders will appoint people to these committees that will have and carry out a mandate to secure as many voting districts as possible for their party, so these committee members will negotiate with opposing party members you give my party voter registration advantage in these set of districts and I will give your party voter registration advantage in another set of districts it is in parties nature to do that they won't be able to help themselves!
Specific instances of gerrymandered created voting districts makes a compelling case for permanently eliminating this problem. This writers Congressional voting district, the Second Congressional District whose current Congressman is Chaka Fattah, provides a good example! In 2013 when Pennsylvania's Congressional voting districts were finally redrawn Lower Merion township (the Main Line, wealthy Gladwyne) was added to the second district now the second district is and has been for a long time a district primarily comprised of low-income Philadelphia neighborhoods which are super strongholds of the Democrat party because the residents of those communities understandably need government assistance whether it be food stamps, Medicaid services, earned income credit, etc. and preserving and expanding such assistance is a top priority of the Democrat Party. Now of course the Republican Party redrew the 2nd voting district because they were in power in Harrisburg at that time and they could have expanded the district in the northern direction to include Abington and Cheltenham Townships for prior to 2013 the 2nd district had Cheltenham district in it and Cheltenham and Abington township are middle class communities so they have a lot in common with the second districts Philadelphia communities that believe that the government has a needed role in making Americans standard of living more equitable across the nation. But no the Republican Party chose to add Lower Merion Township reasonable inferences would deduce it was for political reasons; the principle tactic in gerrymandering is not to make your party have as many truly safe (insurmountable voter registration advantaged) districts as possible, rather, it is too load as many of your opposing party's voters (and assets) into as few districts as possible so your party has the best chance to win as many districts as possible [See Website BALLOTPEDIA for reference]. This is what the Republican Party did here Lower Merion Township is a heavy Democrat area the residents are totally turned off by the Republican Party and its anti-abortion, anti-public school, anti-environment etc. agendas, Lower Merion is a lost cause to the current Republican Party, but most importantly Lower Merion is a really wealthy community wealthy like they can bankroll their Democrat political candidates so that opposing candidates are definitely dead ducks wealthy. Clearly what the Republican Party thought is that the second district with their super solidly Democrat Philadelphia communities is essentially out of reach for our party to win a Congressional race there so let us in redistricting load as many Democrat assets as possible in the second district, following the principle tactic in gerrymandering, so what better than throw the Lower Merion community a campaign cash deep-pocket solidly Democrat community in there!
This gerrymandering turned out to be an historic disaster for me and my neighbors in the Second District for it resulted in its clearly corrupt Congressman Chaka Fattah winning reelection in 2014 so were all stuck with this representative who is an ethical bum! The reason why one can say accurately Congressman Fattah is corrupt stems from Mr. Fatah's 2007 failed Mayorial campaign to become Mayor of Philadelphia. Principally, from one of the perpetrators (Gregory Naylor) plea agreements which occurred before the 2014 elections, the Mayoral race campaign filings and Congressman Fattah's Congressional record and logical deductions the following occurred. Congressman Fattah's 2007 Philadelphia Mayoral campaign began to fall behind so one of the political consultant firms to the campaign called LSG borrowed from one of Chaka's supporters a million dollars to be spent on the campaign (LSG principal Thomas Lindenfeld plead guilty to the scheme the day after the 2014 elections). Six-hundred thousand dollars of this sum was spent on the Mayoral campaign and the balance was returned to the lender. The Great Recession financially squeezed the lender so he called in the $600,000 loan which Congressman Fatah's campaign couldn't cover. So what occurred was the Educational Advancement Alliance (EAA), a nonprofit founded by the congressman to aid education channeled $600,000 of federal grant money back to LSG to pay off the loan by using a sham consulting firm (run by the wife of a former staffer of the Congressman's) that did not do any work for this money EAA paid to it. Pursuant to the Plea Agreement filing Congressman Fatah acknowledged all this to Gregory Naylor. In addition, Congressman Fatah aggressively worked in his role in Congress to get what began as a $15 million grant for an entity called "Blue Guardians" whose supposed purpose was to be “an environmental education and coastal heritage preservation effort working in poor communities along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, as well as the U.S. islands of the Caribbean Seas” which in truth was a non-existent organization which had one principal that being Thomas Lindenfeld; this entity's lack of a record raised the suspicions of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staff which scared off the Congressman and his people and so they dropped this pursuit. The relevance of this subject to a discussion on gerrymandering is that if the second district wasn't so gerrymandered to give away the district to the Democrats one or more strong Republican candidates along with substantial amounts of Republican campaign money would have come into the 2014 election race and would have offered the people of the second district a real chance at replacing Mr. Fattah. I can tell you as a reliable authority that me and the vast majority of my neighbors even those in West and North Philly don't want a guy like Mr. Fattah whose going to wrongly dip his hand into the public trough for his own personal benefit to be our Congressman, this guy was beatable in the 2014 election!
The great harm of gerrymandering is no surprise to the American people in truth this practice is accepted as a given in our society major political parties openly hold out as their goal being the majority party in the legislature come time of redrawing of districts so they can benefit their party in the redrawing. It is sad to say but accurate our current times on this issue are like the early 1800's on slavery and the early 1800's on women's lack of a right to vote American society just accepted these evils back then people talking about eliminating these realities were considered talking crazy! Frankly what should be considered is crazy is Americans accepting this "evil and unjust" system we consider ourselves champions for human rights and democracy throughout the world so we should have as our political system the best that human development can create not this "those in power get to stick it to those not in power" voting district creation system.
The American people should turn to an obvious tool to solve this problem a tool which is frequently seen in America's corporations when dividing America's population for specific purpose that being algorithms or formulas. Objective formulas along with protocols where there is no opening for political chicanery to influence the outcome could be used to draw districts. The process could begin drawing districts for the major cities in the state then move to rural areas. Equations could be used to divide major cities proportionally from a voter density standpoint, based on how many representatives need to have that city be part of their district. Equations could be used to identiy the population density center for a given area. Once a population density center is identified then just take a map that has the residences of each voter in the state plotted on it just move out street by street in equal proportions on each side from the center as you move out you'll increase the number of people variables and eventually you'll reach the total number of voters needed for a voting district and the perimeter streets are the borders of the district, of course, this would all be done by computers so error would be minimized. Obviously this is a thumbnail description of the solution, the body of protocols and formulas would need to be extensive but the idea is clear use objective standards so you take the political jockeying right out of the process. This algorithm based system could be used for drawing both Congressional and statewide voting districts for gerrymandering is a serious problem at both levels. Of course the U.S. constitution would have to be amended to change to this new system the gerrymandering problem is serious enough to warrant Americans want progress not gridlock. State's could still be left with a good amount of rights they could be left with the power to change the algorithms and protocols as long as two-thirds of each chamber of the legislature and the Governor agree with the changes.
Well-respected authorities that recognize that gerrymandering is causing great harm to America abound. Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has publicly spoken about it on numerous occasions in fact he calls for the following amendment to the constitution to be ratified to stop this evil: "Districts represented by members of Congress, or by members of any state legislative body, shall be compact and composed of contiguous territory. The state shall have the burden of justifying any departures from this requirement by reference to neutral criteria such as natural, political, or historic boundaries or demographic changes. The interest in enhancing or preserving the political power of the party in control of the state government is not such a neutral criterion.".
Numerous state governments across the nation have identified gerrymandering as a problem for they set-up nonpartisan committees (well at least that is the intent) to draw up voting districts when it needs to be done on a decade basis. Most interesting is that one of these arrangements, specifically that in Arizona, is the subject matter of a current major Supreme Court case. The basic issue in this case is that the Arizona legislature by law setup a committee comprised of two Democrats, two Republicans and one independent to draw up voting districts with the hope that this nonpartisan committee would design fair districts devoid of this gerrymandering evil; the specific legal issue is that the US Constitution mandates a state legislature set forth the voting district, a legislature delegating this task even for good reason to a committee arguably runs afoul of this mandate does anyone really think any state has a system where every member of the legislature is directly involved in drawing voting districts? Sad to say the consensus seems to be Arizona will lose this case, however they can probably overcome this loss by redoing the legislation and making this committee's work subject to the Arizona legislature's review. But even when state legislature's across the nation delegate creation of voting districts to "intended non-partisan" committees over the long term will the country see the elimination of this inordinately high number of party entrenched voting districts problem, No Way! Party leaders will appoint people to these committees that will have and carry out a mandate to secure as many voting districts as possible for their party, so these committee members will negotiate with opposing party members you give my party voter registration advantage in these set of districts and I will give your party voter registration advantage in another set of districts it is in parties nature to do that they won't be able to help themselves!
Specific instances of gerrymandered created voting districts makes a compelling case for permanently eliminating this problem. This writers Congressional voting district, the Second Congressional District whose current Congressman is Chaka Fattah, provides a good example! In 2013 when Pennsylvania's Congressional voting districts were finally redrawn Lower Merion township (the Main Line, wealthy Gladwyne) was added to the second district now the second district is and has been for a long time a district primarily comprised of low-income Philadelphia neighborhoods which are super strongholds of the Democrat party because the residents of those communities understandably need government assistance whether it be food stamps, Medicaid services, earned income credit, etc. and preserving and expanding such assistance is a top priority of the Democrat Party. Now of course the Republican Party redrew the 2nd voting district because they were in power in Harrisburg at that time and they could have expanded the district in the northern direction to include Abington and Cheltenham Townships for prior to 2013 the 2nd district had Cheltenham district in it and Cheltenham and Abington township are middle class communities so they have a lot in common with the second districts Philadelphia communities that believe that the government has a needed role in making Americans standard of living more equitable across the nation. But no the Republican Party chose to add Lower Merion Township reasonable inferences would deduce it was for political reasons; the principle tactic in gerrymandering is not to make your party have as many truly safe (insurmountable voter registration advantaged) districts as possible, rather, it is too load as many of your opposing party's voters (and assets) into as few districts as possible so your party has the best chance to win as many districts as possible [See Website BALLOTPEDIA for reference]. This is what the Republican Party did here Lower Merion Township is a heavy Democrat area the residents are totally turned off by the Republican Party and its anti-abortion, anti-public school, anti-environment etc. agendas, Lower Merion is a lost cause to the current Republican Party, but most importantly Lower Merion is a really wealthy community wealthy like they can bankroll their Democrat political candidates so that opposing candidates are definitely dead ducks wealthy. Clearly what the Republican Party thought is that the second district with their super solidly Democrat Philadelphia communities is essentially out of reach for our party to win a Congressional race there so let us in redistricting load as many Democrat assets as possible in the second district, following the principle tactic in gerrymandering, so what better than throw the Lower Merion community a campaign cash deep-pocket solidly Democrat community in there!
This gerrymandering turned out to be an historic disaster for me and my neighbors in the Second District for it resulted in its clearly corrupt Congressman Chaka Fattah winning reelection in 2014 so were all stuck with this representative who is an ethical bum! The reason why one can say accurately Congressman Fattah is corrupt stems from Mr. Fatah's 2007 failed Mayorial campaign to become Mayor of Philadelphia. Principally, from one of the perpetrators (Gregory Naylor) plea agreements which occurred before the 2014 elections, the Mayoral race campaign filings and Congressman Fattah's Congressional record and logical deductions the following occurred. Congressman Fattah's 2007 Philadelphia Mayoral campaign began to fall behind so one of the political consultant firms to the campaign called LSG borrowed from one of Chaka's supporters a million dollars to be spent on the campaign (LSG principal Thomas Lindenfeld plead guilty to the scheme the day after the 2014 elections). Six-hundred thousand dollars of this sum was spent on the Mayoral campaign and the balance was returned to the lender. The Great Recession financially squeezed the lender so he called in the $600,000 loan which Congressman Fatah's campaign couldn't cover. So what occurred was the Educational Advancement Alliance (EAA), a nonprofit founded by the congressman to aid education channeled $600,000 of federal grant money back to LSG to pay off the loan by using a sham consulting firm (run by the wife of a former staffer of the Congressman's) that did not do any work for this money EAA paid to it. Pursuant to the Plea Agreement filing Congressman Fatah acknowledged all this to Gregory Naylor. In addition, Congressman Fatah aggressively worked in his role in Congress to get what began as a $15 million grant for an entity called "Blue Guardians" whose supposed purpose was to be “an environmental education and coastal heritage preservation effort working in poor communities along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, as well as the U.S. islands of the Caribbean Seas” which in truth was a non-existent organization which had one principal that being Thomas Lindenfeld; this entity's lack of a record raised the suspicions of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staff which scared off the Congressman and his people and so they dropped this pursuit. The relevance of this subject to a discussion on gerrymandering is that if the second district wasn't so gerrymandered to give away the district to the Democrats one or more strong Republican candidates along with substantial amounts of Republican campaign money would have come into the 2014 election race and would have offered the people of the second district a real chance at replacing Mr. Fattah. I can tell you as a reliable authority that me and the vast majority of my neighbors even those in West and North Philly don't want a guy like Mr. Fattah whose going to wrongly dip his hand into the public trough for his own personal benefit to be our Congressman, this guy was beatable in the 2014 election!
