Kevin Kiley: “Last week yet another State returned to the era of gerrymandering, marking a further regression for democracy in…”

“Last week yet another State returned to the era of gerrymandering, marking a further regression for democracy in America. This entire redistricting war has been a total disaster for our country. What is more, it has been utterly pointless. As was predicted, neither side is really going to come out ahead. Every side has lost. Meanwhile, the whole conflict that has spread from State to State to State has caused partisanship in this country to truly bubble over. It has destabilized representation across the country. It has further eroded trust in the fairness of our political process. It has further eroded the idea of representation and government by the people. It is past time for Congress to take responsibility for the fairness of our own elections throughout this country. We can do that in two ways. Number one is by passing my bill to end mid-decade redistricting. I introduced this last year, and it passed last year. We could have avoided this whole thing, but we can still pass it now to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. Number two is by the time of the next Census when we are supposed to do redistricting, we can pass legislation to end gerrymandering in this country once and for all. The way I am proposing we do this is by setting up a truly independent commission in every State, much like California had before it was sidelined last year.”