My way or the highway pal!

Today, as the US Government shutdown continues; we need to pause and reflect. All I can think of is: “How the hell did this happen?”  The more I think about it, the less and less I feel it is a democrat vs. republican (lower case intentional) problem.  I’m beginning to come to the frame of mind that it is the congressional districts, and how they are drawn.   In most states, my home state of Virginia included, congressional districts are drawn by the political parties.  This makes for some pretty funky looking districts.  Granted, there are rules in place that try to have each district contain the same amount of population and a “community of interest.”   Congressional districts in Virginia are described by Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-302.2 (2012).  Section A simply states there are 11 elected representatives to congress.  Sections B & C is a bunch of legalese, and section D describes each district by precinct.  Check out districts 2 and 3 of Virginia’s congressional district map.  What the heck?

“Who cares!” I can hear you yelling at your computer.  Our elected representatives care, that’s who.  They maintain a loyalty to the people in their district (for the most part, I know there are many exceptions), and vote accordingly.

I know that to some of my friends what I just said makes no sense.  I can hear you thinking: “I thought the representative are supposed to vote for what the people want.” You are correct, they should.  I actually have no problem with the representative voting as their constituents want him or her to vote.  But with the way most districts, say in….Virginia are drawn, the representative has a “safe” district where, as long as they don’t stray too far from the party core; they don’t have to compromise.  And because they don’t have to compromise; the country ends up in conundrums such as this.  Have you noticed how everything over the past few years, before Obama too, have been crisis after crisis.  It’s because our representatives don’t have to compromise.  Our government was built on the principle that neither party gets all they want; they have to compromise to make the system work.

I always thought, and still do to a certain extent, that the districts should be as squarish as possible.  What I mean is that the districts should have commonality, and not be drawn around political party affiliation (VA congressional district #3 comes to mind).

Is there any state in these great United States that does not draw congressional boundaries around political affiliations or have democrats and republicans draw the boundaries?  As a matter of fact there is,  Iowa (yes, I said “eye-oh-ah”) uses a nonpartisan committee with out regard to political affiliations.  Of course, we could always use North Dakota’s model.  Is there any traction on a national stage for Iowa’s model?  As a matter of fact, my representative, Scot Rigell visited Rep. Bruce Braley from guess where…you guessed it: Iowa.  They discussed the merits of Iowa’s districting policy. I have a lot of family in Iowa, so they have to be doing something right!  A good article about congressional districts gone awry can be found here.

What say you?  Am I out to lunch?