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Every mailbox hereabouts recently received an announcement that Rep. Joel Hefley was coming to hold some town meetings with his scattered constituents. That sounds wholesome and democratic, but every one I've attended works like this:
The president of the local Federation of Republican
Women lobs beachball questions like Are you in favor of
prosperity?
and Where do you stand on free
enterprise?
Should any troublemaker mention a problem
getting a pension check or ask why a tight-fisted defender
of the public treasury supports SDI, the local GOP machine
instantly throws up another easy question, which is the one
that gets answered.
Then we all received surveys from our congressman. He supposedly wants to know what we think is the most important issue facing the nation: A) Illegal drugs, B) Education, C) Foreign investment, D) Homelessness, E) Federal budget deficit, F) Health care costs, G) Environment, or H) AIDS.
Nowhere does it specify: I) Congressmen who say they're against unnecessary federal spending, but use their franking privilege to inundate you with bulk mail during election years.
Nor does it mention an important local issue, Elephant Rock Reservoir. To increase its water supply, Colorado Springs wants to dam the Arkansas just north of Buena Vista. A lot of local interests -- fishermen, river outfitters, the tourist industry, etc. -- oppose that.
We're all in the same congressional district. If Hefley represents the majority of his district, he'll support the Colorado Springs Water Department, and the rest of us might as well not have a congressman to look after our concerns.
Thanks to the one-person, one-vote
theory of
democracy, congressional districts boundaries are drawn so
that they're equal in population. Thus they include people
who often, on account of geography, have opposing
interests.
When there's a transmountain water issue before the federal government, Rep. Ben Campbell can forthrightly represent rural and Western Slope concerns, and Rep. Pat Schroeder can look after metro Denver's. Just imagine if one person had to do both, and you've got the problem here.
The result is that I live in a rural area, but the U.S. Supreme Court says I'm supposed to be better off with 1/550,000th of an influence on Joel Hefley, who looks after the Springs, than I would be with 1/650,000th of an influence on Ben Campbell, who looks after the boondocks. Sure.
Whenever they get done with this census, the state will draw new congressional districts. Balanced population will be the major criterion, and no matter how they draw the lines, the result will be that thousands of rural Coloradans will have no effective representation. We'll just get thrown in with various remote cities until the populations balance. If that's democracy, then it's time we tried something else.
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