I guess you call it keeping the dream alive. What dream? An unelected commission filled with the sorts of politically connected goons the 17th Amendment promised to end for US Senate Seats. Am 17 created more problems than it solved. So would HB706.
Related: Far-Left Can’t Stop Bitchin’ About Sustained Veto of ‘Bipartisan’ Bill
This bill would have created a (no longer smoke-filled) backroom deal-making nest of insiders to draw or redraw districts for candidates. Advocates are beside themselves over its demise.
This week’s mea-culpa for ‘Democracy’ comes not from Left-Wing Open Democracy Action (that was last week) but from Center Sandwich. In a letter to the editor titled, “A defeat for democracy in NH” (no irony intended) Margaret Merritt parrots the Open Democracy Action narrative summarized as:
New Hampshire voters want an end to the gerrymandering that frustrates a core principle of democracy.
Saving the core principle of democracy requires us to take a job from duly elected representatives accountable to the voters and hand it off to a cabal of appointed political insiders with no responsibility to the electorate.
That doesn’t just sound like abrogating the core principle of democracy. It is the opposite of Democracy.
To borrow again from Ed Mosca, because Margret may not know this, “two-thirds of the “independent commission” are chosen directly by the Party Bosses, and then the Bosses’ surrogates choose the remaining one-third.”
The ‘independent commission will be chosen by connected political insiders (political stakeholders) who cannot be voted out of office.
The correct term for this is a redistricting oligarchy.
Governor Sununu was right to veto it. The Legislature was right to sustain that veto. And yes, the bill will be back, and we will need to do this all over again.
Good thing we have nothing more pressing to address.