P.G. Smith Author

Ans: When it’s rigged.

Gerrymandering is not new, and it was always wrong. The current uproar in Texas has culminated (so far) in Texas Democrats leaving the state to prevent a vote authorizing a special legislative session to rig the voting districts in favor of Republicans before the mid-term elections.

This battle is only beginning, and it is already totally out of control. At the urging of Pres. Trump, seven strongly Republican states (Tx, Ind, Oh, SC, Mo, Neb, and Fla.) are considering special legislative sessions to redraw their voting districts in their favor.

In response, five Democratic states (Cal, NY, Il, NJ, and MD) are now considering doing the same thing in retaliation. This whole situation is ridiculous. How are voters supposed to feel, now that states are overtly rigging their elections? They are not even bothering to hide it anymore!

And maybe that’s a good thing. At least it’s out in the open. I’m probably being hopelessly naive, but could it be that we are about to hit the bottom on this? What we need it obvious: a state referendum in every state creating a nonpartisan commission–no, that’s undoubtedly impossible–ok, a bipartisan commission with equal representation of each party to draw up neutral voting districts not based on political advantage.

Admittedly, this is not easy; not uncomplicated. There is a lot to be considered. I’m not suggesting that it’s simple. But, given that we have sophisticated technology that can easily indicate how to draw unfair districts, we should be able to use those same tools to draw up fair ones.

That this is critical is obvious. Democracy is premised on the idea that if you (our legislative representatives) do things in our name that most of us don’t like, we can throw you out of office. If you rig it so that we can’t do that, we don’t have a democracy anymore. Just a name.

So, we need a movement to create referenda for every state to draw fair, nonpartisan voting districts. In the meantime, we need to respond to the current situation with phone calls, letters, and protests in the street. We need to stop this crazy (and totally undemocratic) idea of special legislative sessions called specifically to gerrymander us out of our right to have a voice in our government.

We can’t let this happen. Make a sign. Make a phone call. Find a protest. If you never got involved before, now is the time. If we don’t block this, once it’s rigged, it’s rigged.