“When it had a Democratic majority last year,” the New York Times reports, more than 200 years after the Boston Gazette decried Massachusetts state Senator Elbridge Gerry’s district as a sprawling, curving salamander-shaped monstrosity,  “the North Carolina Supreme Court voided the state’s legislative and congressional maps as illegal gerrymanders. Now the court has a Republican majority, and says the opposite.”

I’m shocked — SHOCKED! — to hear that a change of partisan composition on a court has resulted in partisan changes to the partisan content of that court’s rulings on partisan political matters.

The drawing of legislative districts across America is a never-ending partisan war. As the Forward Party’s platform points out, “over 80% of Congressional districts are considered  ‘safe’ seats — they are either clearly Republican or clearly Democratic, leading to a reelection rate over 90%.”

That’s not a side effect. It’s the intent. Legislative majorities draw districts to guarantee that they’ll REMAIN legislative majorities. Legislative minorities then go to court begging for rulings that give them majorities, or at least increase their minority numbers.

While those majorities and minorities often have demographic components — black vs. white, urban vs. rural, etc. — the components are generally subsumed into the simpler identifier of party affiliation.

The Forward Party’s proffered solutions are to “[i]mplement independent or non-partisan redistricting commissions” and pass federal legislation making it illegal to gerrymander by “packing” particular voter types into, or “cracking” them between, districts to benefit one party.

While I like the way the Forward Party thinks on the matter of gerrymandering, neither of those solutions will end gerrymandering, for two reasons.

One is that “independent” and “non-partisan” are meaningless terms. They just mean the party affiliations of the contemplated commissions’ members wouldn’t be publicly advertised, not that those affiliations wouldn’t exist. Anyone who lives in a town with “non-partisan” local elections knows what parties the mayor and council members belong to. Not mentioning a fact doesn’t change the fact.

Another is that the federal law in question would — like the North Carolina law mentioned above —  be interpreted by party-affiliated judges.

There are three ways to fix gerrymandering.

The simplest would be to do away with “districts” altogether and elect all political representatives “at large.” Every Floridian, for example, would get to vote to fill each seat in Florida’s legislature. That would entail its own problems, but it would move the complexities from the administrative end to the campaigns’ side of things.

The most obvious — and I’m far from the first to suggest it — is algorithmic districting: Have a computer draw districts of uniform population, taking no account whatsoever of any other factor (party affiliation, race, urban/rural, etc.). One person, one vote, no gaming of the system. Problem solved.

The third, and my preferred one, is to abandon political government, with its false claims of “representation,” altogether. I sense, however, that most Americans aren’t ready to go that far just yet.

Algorithmic districting is a distant second place solution, but it’s better than gerrymandering, even gerrymandering falsely advertised as “independent” or “non-partisan.”

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On April 25,  US president Joe Biden announced his intention to seek re-election in 2024.

“The question we’re facing,” Biden says in his announcement video, “is whether in the years ahead, we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer.”

“I know what I want the answer to be,” he continues, “and I think you do, too.”

Of course, it’s not about what anyone “wants” the answer to be. It’s about what the answer actually is.

The number of our rights doesn’t change, because we don’t get our rights from presidents, elections, or constitutions.

We get them from what the Declaration of Independence refers to as “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”

We have them because we’re human beings, not because Joe Biden, or anyone else, sits in the Oval Office.

The “freedoms” Biden refers to are entirely a question of whether or not he and his fellow politicians respect those rights.

More than 50 years in politics proves that no, Biden doesn’t respect them. His version of a “right” is the privilege of living as Joe Biden orders us to live.

And those orders can turn on a dime. Note, for example, the skid marks left on various campaigns trails by his sudden switches from “pro-life” to “pro-choice” (2019), from “pro-death-penalty” to “anti-death-penalty” (2019), from “marriage is between a man and a woman” to “marriage equality” (2012), and from “build the wall” to “build the wall but phrase it differently” (2013).

It’s almost as if he says whatever he thinks his base wants to hear, because he thinks that’s what his base wants to hear, so that he gets re-elected.

Just like his most probable general election opponent, Donald Trump.

Every four years, I hear from upstart, dark horse candidates that “we can do better.” But can we?

Political power lends itself well to holding onto political power. So much so that that seems to be its main use by those who grasp it even once.

Which explains why our two mostly likely future presidents are two age-befuddled geezers who plainly don’t live in the real world now, if ever they did, and why Capitol Hill is swarming with Senators who can’t find their car keys without pulling staffers off of “look for a good sale price on adult diapers” duty to help.

The only real term limit is death of old age. And America’s looking pretty long in the tooth itself.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In a letter to the editor of the Washington Post (“The Constitution demands the debt be paid. Period.”), one Maurice F. Baggiano claims:

“As long as public debts are authorized by law, they may not be questioned and must be paid. That’s the import of Section 4 of the 14th Amendment.”

Mr. Baggiano seems to be deeply confused as to what the Constitution, and the law, require, and to believe that they somehow magically compel Congress to raise the “debt ceiling” — that is, to borrow MORE money — by away of paying off what they already owe.

They don’t. Congress could, with at least as much fidelity to the Constitution and the law, cut spending and dedicate more of the revenues it raises from taxation to paying down its debt.

And Congress could, with at least as much fidelity to the Constitution and the law, simply default on that debt. An obligation to recognize the “validity” of a debt is not the same thing as an obligation to pay that debt.

If you don’t believe me, ask any of the tens of thousands of Americans who default on their mortgages, and have their homes foreclosed on and sold at auction, every year. Few if any of those borrowers contest the “validity” of their debts. They just can’t, or won’t, pay up.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution ascribes to Congress the power to “borrow Money on the credit of the United States.”

The 14th Amendment says that “[t]he validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

Neither section, nor any other, requires Congress to pay its bills.

The United States, as Alex J. Pollock notes at The Hill, has previously defaulted on its debts no fewer than four times, three of them since the ratification of the 14th Amendment. While doing so certainly entails consequences, it’s obviously not fatal, else modern world maps would no longer advertise something called “Argentina.”

And notice the bait-and-switch pulled between the two constitutional sections. One minute we’re talking about congressionally incurred debt of the United States (aka the federal government). Then it suddenly becomes “public” debt (i.e. we, rather than the borrowers, get put on the hook).

Far be it from me to “question” the “validity” of whatever debts 535 politicians in Washington may have entered into. That’s between them and their creditors. But I certainly question the “validity” of the notion that anyone other than those politicians could be rightly held responsible for paying those debts. I didn’t co-sign the loans. Nor was I ever asked to do so. How about you?

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY