What Could We Do With 1600 Seats In The House of Representatives?
We could expand the scope of debate, and lower the barriers to entry for someone other than Democrats or Republicans.
Yesterday, The Guardian ran an interesting story about redistricting in the state of Tennessee. It seems that a Republican majority decided to carve Nashville into pieces so that Democrats living in that city would not have a seat of their own in the US House of Representatives. I guess that’s a privilege of a Republican majority. To them, anything they can do to decimate the other party is fair game.
They did something very similar here in Utah, too. Most of the Democrats live in Salt Lake City. There are a few of us in outlying areas, but somehow, those people in the Utah legislature became convinced that people living in the city had shared interests with people living in the country. That didn’t go well. This kind of drama is playing out all over the country.
We should be watching how Republicans, with trifectas in 25 states (to Democrat trifectas in 17 states), are not sharing power with Democrats in the US House. I have no doubt that Democrats are playing the same game against Republicans where they have control over the redistricting process. Where does that leave the rest of us?
