Jan 12, 2008 3:55 pm US/Central
In The Know: Love Politics? Don't Watch Its Making
(WCCO)
Minnesotans have always
been proud of the state's good government, but even good people can work in a
broken system. That's what some high
powered Republicans and Democrats said Friday at the capitol. Don Shelby said
if
the fix works, Minnesota
will once again be the pride of national and local politics.
The
part of the system that is broken is called redistricting. We redraw lines
every 10 years, based on the census. It
is said that those people who love sausage and politics should never watch
either of them being made. Some brave
Republicans and Democrats, a former Vice President, two former governors and
state leaders took the Senate and the press on a trip through the sausage
factory today, and it wasn't pretty.
The
problem has been that when it came time to redraw the lines of districts,
incumbents did the line drawing, unwilling cut their own re-election throats.
The
Humphrey Institute, which has come up with a plan for fixing that flaw, has
said that anymore voters don't choose candidates, the candidates choose the
voters.
Lost
in a system like that is competition -- not just for public office -- but for
ideas and policy.
In
the last statewide election incumbents averaged a 25 percent victory
margin. In other words, the way the
political sausage is currently made, it is better not to watch.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
