Glenn Beck Nailed It!

As I was listening to his radio program last week, Glenn Beck explained the dangers of gerrymandering better than anyone I have ever heard. I will try to do him justice by repeating a summary of his expert analysis.

The purpose of gerrymandering is for the political party in power to design congressional districts that have a healthy majority of voters registered to their party, virtually guaranteeing an electoral victory. In order to do so, the state legislatures often have to carve out grotesque-shaped districts that are an eyesore at best and an abomination at worst.

However, the real downside of gerrymandering is that it creates a massive number of “safe” districts across America’s fruited plain. That is one of the reasons why Congress, which has an approval rating in the low teens, boasts a re-election rate above 90%.

In other words, gerrymandering creates safe districts which breeds mediocrity instead of statesmanship. Let me give you a personal example…

Try running for the U.S. House of Representatives in New Jersey’s 1st congressional district as a conservative Republican, where a GOP candidate hasn’t prevailed since 1972. You are a “no-hoper”, which is exactly how the Burlington County Times described me when I ran against a nine-term Democrat incumbent in 2008… and they were right. Despite receiving the endorsement of every major newspaper – including the extremely liberal Philadelphia Inquirer – and knocking on 10,000 doors while my opponent didn’t enter the race until after Labor Day, I got trounced in the general election.

So what if he had used his wife as a placeholder while he ran for the U.S. Senate and lost? And so what if he had used campaign monies to fund family vacations to Scotland and the Jersey Shore, and to promote his daughter’s acting ambitions with trips to Hollywood and Beverly Hills? Oh, and yes, so what if he had managed to obtain a $600,000 federal grant for Rutgers University Law School’s Admissions Department, where his wife was not-so-coincidentally the dean of admissions? All the voters cared about was that he had a “D” next to his name. And so, when he was forced to resign in disgrace three years later, the Democrat machine simply replaced him with another piece of the party apparatus.

In other words, gerrymandering creates safe districts which results in zero accountability.

Safe districts also create extremists, which was Glenn Beck’s main point. If you are a Democrat running in a safe Democratic district, chances are you will be forced to run as far to the left as possible in order to win your party’s primary. The same goes for the GOP. If you don’t have a hard right position on every conceivable issue, you will be portrayed as a RINO… and you can wave “bye-bye” to the nomination.

And so, safe districts create left-wing radicals on one side and so-called right-wing extremists on the other. Put 220 of each in the House of Representatives and now you know why so little gets accomplished in Washington… and why our country is so polarized.

It would be far better, Glenn Beck asserts (and I agree), to create as many balanced congressional districts as possible. That way, candidates of both parties would have to moderate a few of their positions, move to the center on others, and demonstrate both a willingness and an ability to reach across the aisle.

I say that as a “conservative to the core” Republican who refuses to budge on my core principles but is willing to negotiate on nonessential policy matters. You see, both Glenn Beck and I understand that in order for our great country to stop splintering apart at the seams and to come together instead, each side will have to give a little.

Throughout history, transcendent leaders from Thomas Jefferson to Otto von Bismarck adhered to the belief that “politics is the art of compromise”. Once again, we’re not talking about compromising on principles, but on policies. Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill found a way to work together, as did Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, and our country was better for it in both cases… so why can’t we follow their lead?