March 29, 2019

Nancy Ancrum – Editorial Page Editor

The Miami Herald

RE: Gerrymandering - Last refuge of the deplorables? Some comments on your borrowed editorial on same in today’s Miami Herald

Ms. Ancrum,

Baked v Carr notwithstanding, and I am from New Jersey, exactly how did Alcee Hastings and Mandy Dawson get to Washington and Tallahassee? If I were to say “gerrymandering” you might think me to be a cad exuding White privilege, but, by Crikey,

that’s how they got there.   

The fix was in.

The “pitch and toss” featured a two-headed penny.

They were elected in districts that would have voted for Willie Horton or Tawana Brawley. Maybe Step-n-Fetchit or O.J. would have made the race interesting but since melanin was the only prerequisite required the fix was in, really in.

Rural legislators, a euphemism for red necked, bib-overalled crackers who were deplorable before deplorable was cool, got together with some Urban legislators, that’s short hand for Black flame throwers, and cut the baby in half.

[Was it Bismarck who said that you didn’t want to se either laws or sausages made?]

Enough Black voters were, forgive me, “gerrymandered” into enough districts to get the Feds off everybody’s back. Do you think Corinne Brown would have been elected otherwise? Sweet Baby Jesus, but I hope not.

Here’s one solution.

Divide the number of seats by the population. Get a ruler, a plumb line, and a magic marker. One in a 1000 is a rounding error. Can you see where I’m going here?

Voila! That’s how you get to the capitol, be it Tallahassee or Washington.

But wait, There’s more. Herewith, Plan B

If we do away with the Electoral College, Logic would dictate that the Senate has to go.

Let’s discard 25 centuries of Political Science, History, and, possibly more precious, tradition and a collective memory.

Let’s go unicameral, like Nebraska.

Arm wrestle on a number of seats. No districts. The top 100 or 200 or 600 vote getters get to run the legislature. 

A pure Democracy

Power to the people!

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?

Kevin Smith

WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET