As we approach the election between President Bush and Senator Kerry we are reminded that the odd looking beast, the Gerrymander, is alive and well after almost two hundred years.  If you buy the concept of democracy you must also accept the existence of this fearsome creation that goes back to 1812 in Massachusetts.  It is named after Elbridge Gerry, then Governor of Massachusetts, for the unusual shape of a congressional election district created to give unfair advantage to one party in elections. Gerry’s name was linked with “salamander” because of the shape and the term has had a long history from that time to this.

The Gerrymander is alive and well in Texas because of the power and the need of Tom Delay, the fearsome presence as the House Majority Leader in the House of Representatives, who intervened in the long distance manipulation of an unfair edge over rival Democrats in the matter of redistricting. He has been “admonished” for this kind of behavior before and it resulted in the Democrat minority in the Texas House of Representatives fleeing to another state to avoid having to participate in the slicing and dicing of the map of Texas to further reduce the number of Democrats in that chamber. Delay sent Federal Agents after the Democrats saying they were possible terrorists.

Mr. Delay is noted for his ferocity in driving the activities of the U.S. House of Representatives in the direction that is pleasing to the Republican Party and the Republican President. This is partisanship in the extreme and even the most lethargic ethics committee of the House has had enough on several occasions to remark about his excesses.

Most of us know a little bit about the activity following census data collected every ten years.  Population changes require redistricting the limited numbers of Representatives (435) between states that have grown and states that have shrunk. In populous states, the lines demarking the districts of sitting Representatives often have to be shifted and some lose their seats or now represent other districts than the one they originally represented.  One of these I remember was the redistricting by the Republican majority in New Jersey that created a curious district along the eastern shore of the state that moved the Representative away from his home in a relatively compact area in Long Branch and extended his service to towns far north into other districts.  He was lucky to have kept his seat in the House.

Mr. Delay is a nasty piece of work. He is justly reprimanded for influencing the changes back in Texas where the fleeing Democrats eventually came back to face being Gerrymandered. But, he still is allowed to do business as usual as leader of the Republican majority.