Business Report Executive Editor JR Ball says a group calling itself Fair Districts Louisiana is out to pull off the impossible: Get power-addicted elected officials to give up a power that—among other things—practically guarantees their continued re-election.
“This grassroots, bipartisan collection of do-gooders—perhaps drawing inspiration from Casablanca’s Captain Louis Renault—is shocked, shocked, to find politicians are gaming the once-a-decade joy that is redistricting,” Ball writes in his latest column. “Elected officials putting self-interest over common sense? Say it ain’t so.”
Ball quotes Stephen Kearny, co-founder of Fair Districts Louisiana, as saying, “No matter how virtuous our politicians are, the conflict of interest in being able to choose your own voters in itself provokes bad behavior.”
But if you want to know where most of our current problems in government begin, Ball says you need look no further than the increasingly partisan, often racially divided districts our nation’s elected officials—including those right here in Louisiana—are creating.
“Gridlocked legislative bodies? Redistricting. Political speech becoming increasingly vitriolic? Redistricting,” he writes. “The extreme wings of both the Democrat and Republican parties dominating the political process? Redistricting. Helpless moderates? Redistricting. The extinction of passionate debate followed by compromise, and the death of the “greater good?” You guessed it: redistricting.”
Fair Districts Louisiana is partnering with LSU’s Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs to host a daylong summit in January that will explore redistricting in great detail, Ball notes.
“As for possible solutions … well … maybe, maybe not. Kearny says the goal is to raise public awareness. CABL’s Barry Erwin says, ‘It’s just about getting a dialogue going on this.’ That, perhaps, is the politically expedient approach,” he writes. “But it’s a path akin to another traffic study. We know the problem, people, fix it.”
Read the full column. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
