MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT & CEO

A Nation of 435 One-Party States?
–Charles J. Brown

Recently on primary election day, I struck up a conversation with the barista in my local coffee shop. When I asked him whether he had voted, he said that he had just turned 18 and wasn’t sure whether it was worth his time. I urged him to do so, pointing out that since he would have to live with the results anyway, he should make sure that he had a say.

Sadly, my young friend is not alone in his distrust of our current crop of elected officials. There are a lot of reasons for this, too many to list here. But one that is high on many folks’ list is political gerrymandering.

This is not a new problem. The Constitution instructs the states to redraw Congressional districts after each census.

And the effort to sculpt Congressional districts to favor a particular party or candidate is almost as old as the republic. The term gerrymandering comes from Elbridge Gerry, an early 19th Century American politician who created a salamander-shaped district in Massachusetts to maximize the number of his supporters in his district.

Recent advances in statistical modeling have for the first time given our politicians the ability to go house to house to carve out districts with absolute partisan precision. They literally can pick and choose who they want in their district.

As a result, incumbents know that the best way to stay in power is to keep their base happy. They also know that these are the people who don’t want them to compromise or work with those who have different viewpoints.

Today, the House is neither representative nor very democratic. As Cokie Roberts recently put it, we have become a nation of 435 one-party states. Not only are third parties frozen out, but so is any opposition in most districts. And the vast majority of Americans – those who choose not to participate in primaries, much less elections – have no voice.

Recently the Supreme Court passed on a chance to declare political gerrymandering unconstitutional. Last year, measures in California and Ohio, which sought to remove the Congressional redistricting process from state legislatures and put it in the hands of judges, were defeated at the polls. They lost in large part because the dominant parties (Democrats in California, Republicans in Ohio) mobilized their base to oppose any change in the status quo.

But isn’t political gerrymandering a domestic issue? What does it have to do with Citizens for Global Solutions’ agenda? A lot, actually. One of our goals is to build a globalist majority in Congress. That means electing courageous leaders from parties who have the vision and drive to promote global solutions. If we want real change in the world, we need to fix the system.

That doesn’t mean you should give up on the system – or fail to support those candidates dedicated to global solutions. In fact, 2006 represents the best chance in a decade to change the direction of Congress. Whereas there are usually no more than 20 of 435 seats in the House that are competitive in a given election year, nearly 60 are this year. In fact, to date Global Solutions PAC has endorsed 170 candidates. You can find out more about them (and our efforts on their behalf), by turning the page.

So next time you talk to your elected officials – and this applies not just to Members of Congress but also state senators and representatives (the people who vote every ten years to realign Congressional districts), ask them why they support political gerrymandering. Ask them what they will do to fix the problem. And tell them that you want them to fix what’s wrong with our system so we can do right by the world. It will take local efforts to right the U.S. electoral system but the solution will have a global impact.


Updated October 10, 2006