Friday, 08 August 2014 04:52
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says that Gerrymandering is the single greatest threat to our democracy, yet essentially every state in the United States is gerrymandered anywhere from a little to a lot. The ongoing gerrymandering debacle in Florida demonstrates the degree to which political parties will go to cheat voters out of the power of their votes.
Due to the blatant gerrymander by the Republican controlled Florida legislature that followed the (stupidly worded) 2010 anti-gerrymandering amendment to the Florida constitution, a protracted court battle ensued. The evidence at trial showed that, in spite of the 2010 amendment, Florida is the most gerrymandered state in America. In Florida, in the 2012 election, the gerrymander resulted in a Republican bias of 8 percentage points. What that means is that 42% of Florida voters could tell 58% of Florida voters what they could and could not do.
The Florida District Court has ruled that the Republican legislature did, indeed, gerrymander the 2012 election and was set to gerrymander the 2014 election, as well. Strangely, the court ordered re-drawing of the election districts is being done by the Republican dominated Florida legislature. So not only did their crime pay off in the 2012 election, but the penalty for breaking the law is that the Republicans continue to be able to draw the election district lines, as well.
This outcome is completely absurd and highlights the need for a nationwide law to end gerrymandering. The Congress of the United States has the power to write the rules to end gerrymandering, but, not surprisingly, they like their "safe districts." If we ever are to end gerrymandering, then we must motivate Congress to do what we want them to do; namely, end gerrymandering, now!
So how do we do that? Well, there is a new free app that is a petition to have Congress do just that; that is, END GERRYMANDERING, NOW! It is available for both android and apple devices. It can been downloaded by GOOGLING (do not BING) "A Truer Democracy App" and it should pop right up.
Perhaps, one might take a look at it?
