Letter to the editor: Finally, a gerrymandering fix
· The Washington TimesOPINION:
Finally, there are some adults in Congress with the will to fix the insane gerrymandering of congressional districts that has been going on for over a century (“House bipartisan group floats congressional redistricting changes to stop partisan map wars,” Web, Sept. 16).
Members of Congress from both parties are now proposing legislation for congressional district boundaries to be drawn purely on population, without race or party affiliation considered.
The technology to create apolitical district boundaries is decades-old. An algorithm creates “optimally compact,” equal-population congressional districts in each state based on U.S. Census data.
It draws districts that respect the boundaries of Census blocks, which are the smallest geographic units used by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Doing this would make the district boundaries reflect actual neighborhoods. Unlike in gerrymandering, factors such as race, party affiliation, income levels, religion and ethnic background are not considered.
The only times a district might be elongated like a snake would be because of the topography of the land (e.g., a river, peninsula or mountain range).The result would be that neither political party is totally happy, but the American people will get the representation we deserve.
Cmdr. WAYNE L. JOHNSON
Judge Advocate General’s Corps, U.S. Navy (retired)
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Alexandria, Virginia