Wednesday, June 12, 2019

The intent of gerrymandering is to cheat the electorate (#3785)

     Sure, put all the one party's voters in one district and then just barely win the other districts to keep a majority political lock on not only congressional but state legislatures. This is how the republican party has kept it's majorities throughout this decade. The Supreme Court of the United States is about to rule on the legality of gerrymandering and with a 5 seat republican majority on the court republicans are confident that they will get a favored ruling on their ability to cheat. The verdict is coming any day now and it will not shock anyone if the republicans get to keep their gerrymandered districts except those of us who believe in honest and fair elections.
     You would think that the Supreme Court would be above politics but we have seen that conservative ideology will never bow to democracy when the opportunity to advance the republican agenda is at stake. So party over democracy is their calculus. Yet the petty small minded nature of the party over democracy crowd will not last forever and when the time comes for an end to such small minded thinking we can then restock our Supreme Court with souls who place democracy and our constitutional guarantees above all other things in existence. For now though we have the Roberts court that will not shine in the light of greatness when the future looks back at the past.
     That may change somewhat if gerrymandering is struck down in the next few days but holding one's breath for that outcome is most likely a suicide waiting to happen. The gang of 5 republicans in the Roberts court has little to do with upholding democratic principles such as voting rights for all of its citizens so anything more than what their track record is cannot be assumed. I have resigned myself to the question of gerrymandering remaining a viable alternative after the verdict but I know in my heart and my mind that unequal representation is not a hallmark of wise counsel nor sound democratic principle.

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