by Smitty
Christopher Renner is also on the PA-12 case, posting at Red State and his own digs, including a map of what a train wreck the layout of the PA-12 district has become under the Murtha tenure. Maybe I should walk that back: I don’t live there, and the citizens of PA may think its ducky. However, any system designed to lock in “safe seats” smacks of aristocratic skullduggery, so my criticism stands.
We can accurately blame Eldbridge Gerry for this tortured state of affairs for having foisted gerrymandering upon us. What do you expect from a gnarly old cuss who said:
“The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are dupes of pretended patriots”
It’s the Information Age now. We can and should move the fight to raw Census data, and then have a published, legislated algorithm whereby raw data are turned into sensible voting districts according to whatever criteria are decided, e.g. population, tax base, size, or whatever. Let our politics be more like chess, and less like poker, say I, for the current situation makes pokees of us all.