Federal legislation that included a provision that required all 50 states to create redistricting commissions failed in the US Senate. In states like New Hampshire, there is still pressure to create them.
It is almost always a Leftist project and, as usual, a bad idea.
“California’s independent redistricting commission yields more disproportionate representation than most states,” Watson told The Daily Signal. “California Democratic Party-aligned advocacy groups lobbied the commission.”
In other words, it’s just a different smoke-filled backroom. The partisan political pressure remains constant, but with unelected commissions, there’s no process for accountability and not just in California. The idea has proved a fool’s errand in several states and little more than a means to separate power and responsibility.
Another unaccountable layer of bureaucracy.
Elected officials could promise to look into it or shrug and say it’s out of our hands.
Much like RGGI – a carbon tax/money-laundering machine in the Northeast, the people making the decisions are not elected. There is little to no means of accountability. And the politics is still in play.
The recently failed Transportation Climate Initiative (another northeast leftwing boondoggle laundromat) would give taxing power over motor fuels to a committee of unelected Environmental loons (most likely). It would have the power to increase gas taxes based on its assessment of environmental needs 30 years from now. In truth, it is nothing more than another enhanced revenue stream to state coffers: a tax that would always go up with no way for the taxpayer to remove that “tax man” from office.
Elected officials could promise to look into it or shrug and say it’s out of our hands.
Democrats love these schemes, and redistricting is no different. Around these parts, the Left is mostly all in on the idea, which is always a red flag. Anything Democrats want is probably a bad idea. They destroy everything they touch.
Look what happened when progressives passed the 17th Amendment. With US Senators no longer beholden to state legislatures over whom the people have a significant effect, they became lobbyist whores who could ignore their constituents for years until they needed to get re-elected, carrying massive war-chests back to the state.
The similarity in these examples is that they all removed power from the people. The check was checkmated, or the balance was weighted against them.
The Constitutional Republic is not a tidy system. As has been famously noted, it is the worst form of government, except for all the others. You can’t take human nature out of politics. You can only try to create and protect checks and balances.
The folks pushing unelected commissions are not trying to create fairness, balance, or equity. They are robbing you of your influence, and that’s easy to see. When commissions do the work, partisans lobby the commission. When politicians are doing the deed, opponents have to lobby voters.
Progressives want your influence as far from political power as possible, even if they have to do it one unelected commission at a time.
