The SoapBoxers

Gerrymandering

There will be gubernatorial elections in 38 states in 2009 and 2010. This is causing great happiness or sorrow among hard core party members, depending on the situation.

Why the big fuss?

In 2010, states will redraw district lines as a result of the census. Some states will lose members of the US House of Representatives, other will gain members, and some will simply redraw lines to balance the number of residents in each district.

Sounds incredibly straightforward and boring, huh?

Unfortunately, there is a lot of politics inside the art of redrawing the lines. If the governor is from the same party as the party that controls the state legislature, they can basically redraw the lines in any manner they see fit, and there’s not much the minority party can do.

The key is to consolidate the constituents of your opponent into as few districts as possibly. Let’s take an example state that has 100 voters and 10 congressional districts. 60 are party A, 40 are party B. If the voters are equally dispersed among the districts, party A would win 6-4 in every district and thus all of the states representatives in the US House would be from party A.

Let’s mix those voters up bit.

District 1: 10 A, 0 B
District 2: 10 A, 0 B
District 3: 10 A, 0 B
District 4: 6 A, 4 B
District 5: 4 A, 6 B
District 6: 4 A, 6 B
District 7: 4 A, 6 B
District 8: 4 A, 6 B
District 9: 4 A, 6 B
District 10: 4 A, 6 B

By pushing half of the party A voters into districts 1-3, party B created a situation where they hold an advantage in 6 of the 10 districts!

Obviously, in the real word, it isn’t quite that blatant. But politicians do draw some funny looking districts in an attempt to minimize the impact of the opponents.  The name Gerrymander is in “honor” of Elbridge Gerry who served as governor of Massachusetts from 1810-1812.  Some of the districts drawn during his tenure resembled a salamander.  Gerry + salamander = gerrymander.

I loathe this practice nearly as much as I hate filibusters. I don’t know if there is a perfect solution, but I would propose creating a bipartisan commission to draw the boundaries – half of the members would be from each party. They would be forced to agree on a compromise (which, in theory, should be a map that is fair to both parties).

And if they refuse to agree? They would not be allowed to hold the next scheduled house race until the situation was resolved. A situation could be created where a state did not have representation for a period of time. Can you imagine the impact if a state like Texas or California was unable to seat representatives? My hope would be that the fear of backlash from voters would be enough to force a compromise.

Today’s guest post is from Phil Ossifer (not his real name), writer of the blog Chunga goes wild. Guest posts do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Soap Boxers.

Phil works in IT, but his journey to the world of Information Technology was interrupted by a jaunt as a chef that involved training at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America and a successful career as a chef / ice sculptor. After mastering the world of food, Phil turned his talents to computers. In the process, he logged classroom time toward his Bachelor’s degree in four different decades. Last year, he gave the university an ultimatum – grant him tenure or give him his degree.

Without further ado … “Stop the auto bailout” by Phil Ossifer.

The U.S. Government is making a big mistake by providing additional $billions in another attempt to bail out major players in our failing automotive industry.

Why do we think a few more $billion will help? These companies were losing money even during the economic boom (GM and Chrysler are over $100 billion in debt at the end of 2008, and it has gotten much worse). All of this after already supplying them with $15 billion in 2008.

We should not continue to throw good money after bad in attempts to keep the industry afloat longer, since this will ultimately make our situation worse. It adds billions to our debt, extending the depth and length of the current recession/depression. Hey! National debt is not limitless – eventually, other countries would be unwilling to buy our debt. There are indications that China is already shying away from taking on new U.S. debt. Played out, this is similar to a large auto company failing – only this time it’s a nation.

I realize that there is much pain and gnashing of teeth that will result from a failure of GM or Chrysler, but unfortunately, I think our automakers are destined to fail in the face of superior competition. That’s not an anti-American slam; it’s my objective assessment.

This is not the first time we’ve had a painful parting with a traditional industry that we needed at one time. Over the decades, we’ve had many changes (e.g. outsourcing of manufacturing, toy-making, etc) that have led to job loss and other trickle-down effects. Example: The Japanese beat us at consumer electronics manufacturing and we ended up turning away from that industry. It would have been foolish to try to keep it afloat by adding to taxpayer debt. We had to change, and we have to continue to change to compete in the global economy.

What the U.S. is good at – and has to keep doing to survive – is innovation. We invent something new, lead the pack, then inevitably a competing country beats us at our game, and we re-invent again. Doing this starts with solid education. This process is not something to be feared, because 1) it is inescapable, as more developing countries get in the game, and 2) there is a lot of good in this process – quality improves, choices improve, and prices drop.

I realize that this does not provide any help for the many autoworkers, supporting sub-industries – and trickle-down effects like adding to the mortgage default rate, reduced spending, etc, etc.and I do not have an answer for that.

But let’s not delay the inevitable. The loss of our automakers is pain that we must go through, because our alternatives are either 1) go through the pain now, or 2) go through the pain a little later, but with of billions in new debt. These continued bailouts can hasten the pace towards financial insolvency, and I for one don’t feel like learning the Mandarin language just yet.

I admit that this may be easier for me to say this since I’m more removed from the direct effects of the failing auto industry. I don’t like it, but I think that it is our reality.

The whole situation with the Illinois governor makes me wonder … when a member of congress leaves his/her seat for a better job (President, Vice President, cabinet, etc) why don’t we simply let them pick their successor?

After all, if I voted for Senator X, I want a person who very closely fits Senator X’s profile to fill that role. Who better to make such a decision that Senator X. If the governor is from the opposing party and selects someone from that party, I might get the exact opposite of Senator X – definitely not what I wanted when I voted.

Of course, there would need to be an exception for situations where a person resigns in disgrace – and a way to split hairs of what is or is not disgrace.

[Note: this is intended to be a humorous parody of the relatively short delay in declaring a winner in the Oregon senate race. It is not intended to be an accurate representation of the state’s election process.]

As we trot toward the festivities of Thanksgiving, the diligent election workers in the state of Oregon continue their thankless job of counting the votes. We expect a winner to be declared in the senate race any day now.

TCO caught up with Joe Saycanusi of the Oregon Secretary of State’s office.

TCO: Joe – Do you mind if I call you Joe? It is now 2 weeks past election day and we’re still waiting for a winner in the Merkley/Smith Senate race. What, exactly, is causing the delay?

JS: Well, TCO, we are experiencing multiple issues. As you know, all voting in Oregon is done through the mail. This year, we have had a bit of a West Nile epidemic, and this has really put a strain on the herd.

TCO: Er, what’s that? Do you mean that the mail in Oregon is actually delivered via pony express?

JS: Of course. What else would we use? Oxen are strong, but they’re pretty slow. We had a second health issue as well – several of the horses came down with constipation. Believe me, when a horse is waiting to take a crap, you’re just going to have to wait it out. Really, I don’t see what the big fuss is all about. The new congress doesn’t start work for a while yet. As long as we’ve declared a winner by then, everything is cool.

TCO: Well, Joe, that’s very fascinating. Thank you for enlightening us.

TCO: We were also cable to catch up with a precinct captain in Multnomah County. We are pleased to speak to John Morgan.

TCO: Captain Morgan – how are you feeling this morning?

CM: Aye, a bit hung over, to be honest. We’ve been doing this bloody counting for umpteen days now. It’s enough to drive you a bit mad after a while, so I went on a bit of a bender last night.

TCO: I believe that you had a bit of a problem with some votes in one of your precincts. Can you explain what happened?

CM: Well, the middle of last week, our cleaning people came in at night to scrub the place down. Unfortunately, when our counters got in the next morning, they discovered an absolute tragedy. Our permanent record of the vote counting had been destroyed – the blackboard was scrubbed clean! Even worse, the ballots had been thrown out with the trash!

TCO: Wow. That’s horrible. Yet, you are expecting to have complete results …

CM: I know what you’re thinking. No, we didn’t just make up some numbers. We grabbed our boots and headed out to the dump. After two days in the dump, we recovered every single ballot. Then we went work, removing chewing gum and taco sauce from the ballots. It was hard work, but I am confident that every single vote has been tallied correctly.

TCO: Wow, that’s quite the ballot tale, captain Morgan. That’s it for this installment of the news. Join us next time as we oversee the counting of ballots in the Alaska senate race.