I've seen a lot of rage about the government shutdown. I've seen rage about the possible default on the government debt, and the negotiations to keep that from happening. I've seen rage about the non-stop ACA repeal votes, about the Benghazi manufactured controversy. About Rush Limbaugh and his hate speech. And certainly about all of the variety of efforts to restrict women's health and work rights as well as voting rights for minorities and students. And on and on. And our leaders and advocacy organizations have taken action on these issues. Nice.
And while I have heard it mentioned that the gerrymander of the house districts has been so bad after the 2010 census that it is the only reason the House is still run by the GOP, where's the rage? Where's the concerted effort to overturn those results? Where are the court cases trying to get those maps thrown out? They very clearly reduce the amount some votes count while increasing the amount other voters votes count and is a page out of the playbook of racial disenfranchisement we have seen for centuries.
There is plenty of analysis out there that backs this up. Check out this NY Times map that shows heavily populated states that were dramatically tilted towards the GOP by recent gerrymanders.
Instead of arguing about how bad the GOP run House is for shutting down the government, we need to be asking why they even have the Speaker's gavel at all! And waiting to do something until the 2014 mid-term elections and playing on the same tilted playfield is NOT a winning strategy.
I'm not a lawyer or constitutional expert, so I don't know what our avenues of challenging these tilted maps are. But I do know that if we accept the GOP's rules of the game, we will always lose.
It's time to give Pennsylvania's congressional delegation back to the majority of it's voters. Same with Michigan. And Ohio. North Carolina. Virginia and Florida too. Despite what the GOP would like, each person gets 1 vote, regardless of their skin color or where they live. And when those votes add up to a state-wide majority of the vote for one party, but the majority of that state's congressional delegation goes to the other party? That's disenfranchisement. That's Un-American. And we need to fight against it!