Political parties carve up -- and cut out -- voters

There are 18 items to be covered in the current special session of the Texas Legislature. One of them is by request of President Donald Trump who asked Texas Gov. Greg Abbott if Texas couldn’t come up with an additional five Republican districts to help the tiny GOP majority in Congress.  

Recall that in 2020 Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find him an additional 11,000 votes which would be the amount needed for him to win Georgia. 

Abbott was happy to oblige, and a bill was introduced to redraw Texas’ congressional district map to eliminate five Democratic districts and replace them with Republican districts. 

To stymie the move, 50 Democratic legislators left Austin for as long as it takes to run out the clock on the legislative session, leaving the Legislature shy of the needed quorum of two-thirds of the body needed to conduct business. Abbott called out the Texas Rangers to corral the mavericks, hog-tie them and bring them back. In response Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker offered to put the Democratic dogies up in his luxurious Hyatt Hotel in Chicago, where two rumors of bomb threats caused the hotel to be evacuated twice. 

Going one better, California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom (ex-husband of Donald Trump Jr.’s ex-fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle) is offering to redistrict five California Republican members of Congress out of office.  

What the hell is going on here? 

Not democracy. 

This is a raw grab for political power which has little to do with democracy and everything to do with diminishing the power of the individual voter. 

If the purpose of representative democracy is to give voice to the concerns and beliefs of individual Americans, this is not the way to make that happen. Now, more than ever in our nation, the “concerns and beliefs” are manufactured at the political party level and injected into the minds of the voters. Rather than voters getting information from reliable and accurate sources the political parties, through their selective media, are dictating what they want the American voter to believe so they will vote “right.” 

There is a core group of political influencers, both within the party systems and the media, who are looking for predetermined outcomes that support the parties’ need for power. The people who benefit from this are not the working people of America, but the wealthy and famous who know what is good for them and use the American voter to get it. This goes for both major parties.  

The Democrats build fragile coalitions of minority and disenfranchised groups for their support but are more concerned about the support of the wealthy and educated voter for victory. While the policy of the Democratic Party may be in the best interests of the working American, Democrats treat the people it wants to help in a paternalistic fashion, saying, “we know what is best for you.”  

The Republicans are a little less subtle in their deception, using scapegoating and fostering anger so that they can build an America where there are no restrictions on making millions, and no taxes for the rich. 

In the American electorate there are many ways to think about complex issues. In American political parties there is only one accepted way which is the way the issue is defined in the party platform by the party leaders. 

There is a way out of this: outlaw political parties. 

Or, just shy of that, hand the redistricting process over to non-partisan committees.  

How could they do any worse? 

Jim Elliott served 16 years in the Montana Legislature as a state representative and state senator. He lives on his ranch in Trout Creek.