GERRYMANDERING: Redistrict? Nein!

I can channel outrage faster than Dionne Warwick‘s friends can channel the late relatives of gullible callers to their psychic hotline. Little can get me frothier and more indignant than a good, political documentary. GERRYMANDERING has all the necessary ingredients to cause me to stew, and yet, I left yesterday’s screening at the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) merely, mildly annoyed… with the presentation. In ascending order, here are my top three grievances.

1) The SIFF programmer introducing the movie and questioning director Jeff Reichert was as intelligible as Bronson Pinchot‘s Balki and as intelligent as Dan Quayle‘s Dan Quayle. (Is it too much to ask, SIFF, that your programming team show filmmakers a little respect?)

2) GERRYMANDERING may be the first political documentary I have ever seen to offer absolutely no solutions to the problem it details. I don’t expect filmmakers to cure all our ills, but the meager end credit prompts to “Know Your District” and to visit a website (www.endgerrymandering.com) seem under-instructive. (I don’t know how many slacktivists it takes to change a light bulb, but I do know that giving audiences achievable action items beats having no INCONVENIENT alternatives.)

3) Gerrymandering — i.e. the redistricting of voting communities in service of political hackery — is clearly a problem and, possibly, a great threat to our democracy. (Sorry, Texas Board of Education, I will continue to call America a “democracy” even if you propose textbooks redefine our nation as a “Constitutional Republic.”) But, is gerrymandering the sickness or is it rather, simply, a symptom of a more insidious disease?

Frankly, I don’t know what to do about the first issue I’ve raised and I can only wish GERRYMANDERING had been clearer what to do about the second. However, I’ll take a crack at the last. There is no doubt that if legislators can reapportion voters to increase the likelihood of incumbents’ re-election, there exists a conflict of interest that will, invariably, favor the powers-that-shall-always-be rather than their constituents. Yet, it is these very demographic calisthenics that suggest the problem runs far deeper, to the very heart of the politicians and the soullessness of the parties they represent. They indicate that self-perpetuation, influence-peddling and partisanship have overtaken true public service as the primary raison d’etre of our elected officials. This may not be news to many, but let us not become so jaded as to disregard this egocentrism as the cancer that must be removed in order to have any hope of recovery. It just could be that commissioners appointed by elected Republicans and  Democrats might be more efficient overseeing redistricting than California’s pending citizens committee (as voted in with the state’s Prop 11 in 2008), if the former were guided solely by the notion of good government instead of the self-serving maintenance of the status quo.

Of course, we may also need to redefine our notions of governance. Redistricting, even when managed impartially, suggests that certain populations — divisible by race or socio-economic backgrounds — require different representation due to different agendas. Yet if we are to embrace the Declaration of Independence and grant that we all are “created equal,” shouldn’t we assume that any honest politician (yes, oxymoronic, I know) would consider the greater good, thus benefit us all? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, right? Or does that only work for Mr. Spock and fall flat in this era of political correctness? Perhaps it’s hard to believe, majority rule can respect minority interests once we accept that Americans are not independent but interdependent.

Near the end of GERRYMANDERING, an incredibly significant question is tossed aside like pedestrians in the path of Lizzie Grubman‘s SUV; the age-old debate: should politicians serve the people who reside within their districts or act in service of their own consciences? What do you think, dear readers? I’d like to see Mr. Smith — or Ms. Nguyen or gender-undefined Jones — go to Washington and represent an ideal or two. I’d like to witness governance by informed instinct of the individual, or, Leadership as it was once known. Screw consensus and second terms.

As we cannot legislate Integrity, I propose that our two-party system be overhauled, not by adding a third but rather by eliminating both. I’ve had enough of Democrats and Republicans… and Tea-Partiers, Green-Partiers, Libertarians and Lyndon LaRouchebags. Get rid of them all. Let’s ban political advertising and force candidates to meet their constituents and explain their positions face-to-face in complete sentences, not tailored sound-bites. If candidates were forced to listen to the voters instead of talking down to them, discourse would thrive and accountability would be revived. Finally, governance could achieve Abraham Lincoln‘s stated goal of being by the people, for the people… even if we didn’t always agree with the decisions made on our behalf.

Have I got your vote?

(For more about the need for election reform, check out my interview/s with David Earnhardt, director of UNCOUNTED.)