from Wayne Powell:
Friends and Neighbors:
On August 17, 2015, the legislature will meet in a special session to redraw the 3rd Congressional District. The state has been directed by the Federal Court to correct the gerrymandered district lines. This redistricting will likely have an impact on both the 4th and 7th congressional Districts. The crux of the issue for the Federal Court was the "packing" of the congressional district with African American voters, to dilute minority voting power in other Congressional districts with a selective distribution of those voters. This is good and I hope it will call more attention to the issue, but the problem of gerrymandering is pervasive. Not only has the Republican controlled legislature been proven to have used racial bias in redistricting, but both parties have used gerrymandering throughout history. It is not a partisan problem.
Gerrymandering is wrong, whatever the justification is by the parties.. As we the people lose the power that we should have in our democracy to the political chess game of the status quo, gerrymandering is just one of the tools used by politicians to pick their constituents. Voters should pick their representatives and not the other way around. After all, that is what the founding fathers intended. If we are truly going to be a country of the people, by the people and for the people, we need to hold our leaders accountable when they try to pervert our democracy for their own interests. “A republic… if you can keep it” Benjamin Franklin famously said when asked whether the United States was a monarchy or a republic. Those words never seem to lose their importance.
When I contemplated running for the Senate in the 11th district, one of my primary motivations was to fight the pollution of big money politics and the undemocratic practices such as gerrymandering that feed the power and influence of the elite at the expense of the voices of Virginians. I joined the One Virginia 2021 campaign, and I join this bipartisan effort to stop gerrymandering. I am proud to stand with people from both parties who oppose the scourge of gerrymandering. I also support and advocate the creation of a nonpartisan commission to draw voting districts for Federal and state representation. Politicians shouldn’t get to draw their districts.
While the political operators at the Capitol try to maneuver themselves so they do not have to answer to the voters there are some non-politicians, and I count myself as one, who simply want to go to the Capitol to represent the people, not the special interests, and not partisan politicians. Our democracy has to be better than that. It is the lasting legacy from our founding fathers and we should treasure it.
Best regards,
Wayne Powell
www.powellforsenate.com
