There has been a lot of griping (all correct) about how some Republicans tend to place party before the good of the nation. Well, now we see a perfect example of Democrats doing the same thing.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is floating a plan to change the way districts are drawn in his state. He wants to take it out of the hands of lawmakers and into the hands of non partisan judges. Arnold thinks the result would be less extremists from both parties and instead elect more moderates like the "Governator." Well,Kevin Drum writes today that while he thinks Arnold has a good idea he can't support it. Why? Because it would give the Republicans the upper hand. He writes:
"...the insanely partisan atmosphere of contemporary American politics means I can't support this proposal even though I think it would be good for the state. After watching Texas Republicans ram through a brutally gerrymandered mid-decade redistricting that gained the Republican party four congressional seats in the 2004 election, how stupid would a California Democrat have to be to agree to meekly support a goo-goo proposal that would have the effect of giving Republicans more seats in yet another state? Guys like Tom DeLay and Hugh Hewitt would be guffawing in their beers for days about our terminal naivete if we went along with this. Raw power would be their ally in red states and appeals to progressive idealism would be their ally in the blue states. That's quite a combination."
So because our nation is so partisan and because this plan could give the Golden State more Republicans than Dems, even if those Republicans were moderate, and because of what Tom Delay did in Texas, Drum can't support this.
Drum says this is a national issue and wish the President would deal with it. Oh please. Elections are run by the states and Drum knows that Bush will never take this up. Nor will any other President. In Drum's eyes, as long as the Republicans are in charge, dealing with gerrymandering should never be touched. That is short-sighted. Making redistricting a less partisan affair would go a long way towards making America less partisan. But for Drum, that can only be done as long as the Dems are on top.
Drum likes to consider himself a centrist Democrat, but in the end, he is part of the problem. because he is more willing to put his party before the good of the nation, he is no better than Republicans who only accept that which falls into their ideological framework.
They deserve each other.
UPDATE: There were a few typos in the earlier version of this post and I added in a few more thoughts, just in case you notice anything different.
Posted by Dennis at January 6, 2005 01:48 PMThere's nice "bipartisan" cooperation here in New York state. The Democratic Assembly speaker colludes with the Republican Senate leader to gerrymander both parties into a perpetual majority. Even at the expense of screwing their fellow party members in the other chamber. Some results: NY's Senate has been GOP for about 30 years despite Dems having a 5-3 advantage statewide. 3 (possibly 4, depending on the result of a court challenge) incumbent senators out of 50-something lost races and this is considered a major uprising. There hasn't been an on-time budget approved in over two decades. They failed to deal with a court ordered reform of school funding so now a court-appointed panel will do it. The legislature was ranked by NYU's law school as the most dysfunctional in the nation. All this is because districts are so uncompetitive that it's nearly impossible to hold legislators accountable. I think something like 40% of the legislative races last November lacked major party opposition.
Posted by: Brian at January 7, 2005 01:29 PMThe real problem is the very concept of gerrymandering. It is a blatant attempt at disenfranchising one group of voters, and should be made illegal, along with other practices recently brought to our attention in the various cries of fraud out there.
There are numerous ways to prevent it. Several that come to mind are requiring the ratios of party membership districts to be within a certain percentage of the statewide ratio, restricting the ways lines could be drawn to specific geographical/political boundaries, a maximim perimeter, or allowing a veto to all parties and never allowing a single party to have control over the districts. The problem is that both sides want to preserve it to use against the other party.
Until there is an enforced national standard on how congressional districts are laid out, this will keep coming up.
Posted by: William Bollinger at January 7, 2005 12:17 PMSo Democrats need to go along with GOP ideas for the good of the nation, but Republicans can do what they want because they have the power. That's just as bad of a double standard, and as a centrist Democrat, I'd like to see some good-faith concessions by the GOP before I continue to drop my pants and bend over.
Posted by: modDem58614 at January 7, 2005 09:13 AM