Politics & Opinion

Moving The Legislative Goal Posts

By Patrick Weadon

Imagine for a moment that the winner of this year’s Super Bowl would not only take the Vince Lombardi trophy, but also the right for the entire next football season to change the rules whenever they saw fit. Under this scenario, for the next 16 games, when they had the ball, the goal line would always be close enough to allow their team to score. Conversely, when they were on defense, they could extend the gridiron to the point where the opposition could never get a touchdown.

The aforementioned scenario is of course a fantasy. However, assuming for a moment that could happen, it would not only give an unfair advantage to the hypothetical team but would, eventually, undermine the credibility of the NFL in general. In time, fans would begin to conclude that the game itself was secondary to having the right to make the rules. That being the case, over time, most people would come to lose respect for the game of professional football.

For this reason, the NFL ensures that every field that its teams play on, whether it is in Baltimore or Pittsburgh, is 100 yards long. Every team gets six points for a touchdown. Every team gets the same amount of time outs and the same number of players on its roster. Because of this fairness and continuity, even when teams have bad seasons, they continue to have faith in the league, mostly because they know if they play by the rules, they will someday have the chance to achieve success.

Contrast the above scenario with the way that voting districts are drawn up in our nation. In Maryland, those on the right love to pillory the Democrats for their propensity to shamelessly use the process to increase their political power. Guess what, they’re right; the recently drawn up districts are anything but fair.

However, those who believe that this is just a problem on the left side of the aisle are wrong. Ask the former majority whip, Republican Tom Delay, about his views on redistricting. The fact is that Delay pulled the same rough stuff in the Lone Star state that our political leaders are currently doing in Maryland. The sad reality is that for most of the states, the party that wins the most recent election believes it is entitled to use redistricting as a tool to feather its political nest.

In the end, this lack of fairness undermines democracy and the credibility of both parties. Take a look at the present situation in our state regarding this issue. Republicans are unhappy, Democrats are unhappy, the NAACP is unhappy. The reason is that both parties have failed to agree to play by the same rules.

So, if you are tired of complaining and would like to change things, I would urge you to go to the website of “Americans for Redistricting Reform.” The ARR is bipartisan and they believe that “Voters should choose elected representatives, not the other way around.” To my mind their efforts to inject fairness and consistency into what is currently a broken system provide hope for the future.

Now some skepticism is in order. Politics is not football, and no bipartisan committee, regardless of how hard it tries, will ever be able to draw “perfect” districts. Even so, the goal should be to inject as much fairness as is humanly possible into the system. Right now neither party is even trying, and until they do, both sides will continue to spend their time trying to make up the rules rather than playing by them.