Clean up the rigged elections at home first

Walter Cronkite
The Daily Herald
November 02, 2003

The recent redistricting of Texas, promoted and directed by Houston's congressman and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, reminds us that it is not just countries like Zimbabwe, Azerbaijan and Chechnya that rig their elections.

We've been doing it in this country ever since the Founding Fathers sought to assure that each congressional district would represent as nearlyas possible an equal number of citizens. They provided a census, to be taken every 10 years, as the basis on which the districts could be realigned.

Unfortunately, they left to the states how those district lines would be redrawn. The state legislators undertook the task and highly politicized it.

--snip

Concern over this essentially corrupt practice has been rising, and some states have been trying alternatives to redistricting-by-legislature. Iowa has adopted an independent commission, with salutary results -- more competitive elections and more sensible, contiguous congressional districts.

Rigged elections here seem especially scandalous today, as we preach to the Iraqis and others in the developing world the virtues of representative democracy and hold ourselves up as the paragon of that virtue. It is high time we cleaned up our own house.

Clean up the rigged elections at home first