Wednesday, August 15, 2001
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Wednesday, August 15, 2001 |
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Democrat power play slices and dices Fayette Citizen Editorial It seems the power-brokers at the state Capitol are suffering from two maladies: the arrogance that comes with 100 years of being in a one-party state, and the paralyzing fear that comes with realizing that era may be coming to a close. We thought the state Senate's redistricting process was a bit partisan, but we were unprepared for the naked contempt for the voters exhibited by Democrats in the House of Representatives when that body's proposed new district map hit the floor Monday. There is a legitimate argument that splitting some counties between more than one Senate district provides more representation. It's hard to justify creating a district that touches six counties, such as in the proposed 17th, but having more than one senator representing the county's interests might end up being a benefit when money is being sought for local projects. On the other hand, there is an equally legitimate worry that a county's overall interests and needs will be buried or even ignored among a hodgepodge of partisan conflicts. After all, Fayette is a single governmental unit: County taxes and county services stop at the county line. Will any one senator have the big picture on Fayette's behalf? Likely not. That said, there is no way that House Democrats can justify the jumble of tortured multi-member districts that they have brought to the floor. The tactic was clear in the Civil Rights era. If you want to limit the number of minority-represented districts, you take an area with strong minority voting strength and lump it into a much larger district with even stronger majority voting strength. Then, instead of one district with a minority representative and another with a majority representative, you have one mega-district with two or three white representatives. The House Reapportionment Committee has lumped north Fayette into a two-member district where the majority of voters will be in Fulton County and the city of Atlanta, virtually guaranteeing that there will be two Atlanta residents representing that part of Fayette, with no real incentive to pay much attention to the area. The voting strength, after all, will be in Fulton. In another clever ploy, the committee has thrown three sitting Republican incumbents into a single two-member 84th District. Simple math: you exchange three Republicans for two. In the end, Gov. Roy Barnes and Democrats in the legislature have turned a decennial quest for equitable representation into a raw grab for continued power. In their political greed, they have spit on the concept of natural, local, political boundaries. Now there are two classes of Georgians: Democrats in power, at any cost, and the rest of us, who have been gerrymandered out of meaningful political participation. If voters statewide don't see this for what it is and revolt next election, they deserve the contempt in which they will continue to be held by Barnes and his Democrat machine.
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