American Democracy:

More Fragile Than We Think

Part Six of a Nine-Part Series About the Evils of Gerrymandering
by David Brin, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2006, by David Brin.
All rights reserved. No duplication or resale without permission.

Reprise: The deeper, most-cancerous effects of gerrymandering do not cancel out. They leverage and multiply against each other. Taken together, they show how one part of our democracy -- the election of representatives to Congress and other legislatures -- has become warped beyond almost all recognition, justice, or usefulness.

So? What can be done about it?

Well, for starters, don't come to me for pat answers, prescriptions or painless solutions. Citizenship was never easy, as the Athenians found, as soon as the guidance of Pericles began to falter.

In fact, I do know that some of the more obvious "solutions" just won't work.

How about those proposals -- a bill or ballot proposition -- that we see raised occasionally, aimed at eliminating the gerrymandering curse by law? These offer to reform the system by handing over the job of drawing district boundaries to "impartial commissions." Isn't that hopeful? Can't we solve this problem one state at a time?

Don't bet on it. Look closer and you'll see that each of these efforts has been pushed by the minority party within the state in question, campaigning to eliminate the majority's unfair advantage. That's fine, but few comment on the utter hypocrisy of, say, California Republicans decrying their state's gerrymandering sins, while their Texas GOP brethren refine the practice to a high art.

Moreover, because this is always a gambit raised by the state's minority party (sometimes assisted by a minority party governor), how often is it really going to work?

In sum, doing it one state at a time is utter hypocrisy.

All right then, what about doing it in a fair and equitable manner?

One might, for example, envision arranging deals that would trade reciprocal reforms among several states at once. Suppose California were to hand over the drawing of district boundaries to an impartial commission... in exchange for an equal number of impartially redrawn districts in, say, Texas and Florida combined?

Boy, I would flat-out love to see that. I am all in favor. Somebody start a campaign and I'll sign on.

Only it won't happen. Not soon, that is. Because in order to make such a deal, you will have to get it signed off first by the very people who set up gerrymandering in the first place! The Professional Political Caste.

Even if it can be shown that a tradeoff will leave the NET number of Congressional seats per party alone... if you can show that no party will lose... even so, these professionals will be terrified, adamant and unwilling. Because this is not just about two parties jockeying for a little advantage. It never has been.

Think! An end to gerrymandering will:

Do you honestly expect the political caste to put up with something like that?

Once again, please, do not misconstrue what I am saying. Not all politicians are betraying monsters who do these things with deliberate malice.

Many -- perhaps even most -- of them are deeply sincere public servants, who feel that they must use the tools at hand - including gerrymandering - in order to limit ideological foes who are much worse than they are.

(In many cases, actually, I quite agree.)

But this focus on foreground political knife fighting can distract even sincere public servants from ever facing the insidious effects of what they have wrought, year after year, decade after decade. Over time, they have done grievous damage to a system that was supposed to be about citizen empowerment and the sovereignty of every individual American.

Again, we are human. Hence, we (including politicians) are all supreme rationalizers. Unless criticism and light and accountability shine, any of us is likely to drift toward the kind of behaviors that have been seen throughout history. For example, coming up with reasons to support our trade or guild against interference from the crass customers or ignorant public.

Or are you claiming that you never came up with a convoluted reason to take advantage, where it could be gotten, later explaining to yourself and others that was all for the common good?

No, we are defending the Enlightenment, boys and girls, during what we hope will be the last generation or two before it takes hold for good. Rationalization is the old way and accountability is the new.

If there is to be any hope, we must be the ones to take responsibility. There will be no help from the politicians. Not in this matter, where their utter self interest is at stake, independent of ideology or party.

This is one problem we are going to have to solve ourselves.

Next... but wait -- it only gets worse!