[quote=CricketOnTheHearth]The only two major options for affecting what our leaders do is voting them in or out of office, or taking to the streets in armed mobs. A third option is economic, but there is only so much corpor-rat crap we can refuse to buy… gotta eat and drive to work, after all.
And if our vote is rigged and gamed, and we are never presented with any but corporately-approved candidates, what options does that leave us?
[/quote]
IMHO gerrymandering has really shifted power away from the voter and towards the parties and thier clients, which are often corporations and nearly always special interest groups. Generally, the politicians running in a gerrymandered district already know if it will go Democrat or Republican. What matters to them is wining the parties nomination, not winning the election. Gerrymandering pre-allocates seats to each party and effectively removes the need for politicians to respond to ALL of thier consituents and replaces it with the need only to respond to the party they affiliate with.
To fix this, the enire concept of gerrymandering needs to be banished!
