The Thicket of Gerrymander

Your editorial is, in effect, an endorsement of that corrupt distortion of the representative process known as gerrymandering. If all votes were taken “at large” the one-man-one-vote principle would insure a direct connection between the will of the people and the legislative process. But we do not vote at large for the legislature. We vote by districts. When district boundaries are distorted for partisan or philosophical purposes, the result is a distortion of the people’s will and a growing public disenchantment with the entire political process.

Your editorial says that “people who feel their views are not adequately represented in a legislature should organize to make themselves heard.” In other words, use the distorted process to correct the distorted process. That is like saying one can cure dehydration by drinking water from a poisoned well.

Ah, but you say, “Use the initiative process. That vote is taken at large.” In two recent efforts to correct the evil of gerrymandering by the initiative process The Times has opposed both efforts.

If you favor gerrymandering, why not write an editorial frankly saying so?

N.B. MARTIN

Visalia