One of my greatest complaints is gerrymandering, and I have had some experience with it. My problem is that the action is always taken by the party in power, and is done in the way that best protects the inteerests of that party, then ten years later, it gets changed IF a new party is in power, but it is harder for that power to be changed for the simple reason that the districts have been rigged to make it harder for the other party to get in power. so: In the late 60s, while Jon Walker was running for governor of Illinois, I was living in Palatine Illinois and somewhat politically involved when I learned that Chicago had one district that was hour-glass shaped with too large ends and a narrow pasage between and also one that was actually split into two parts wih another district in between, I also knew that California had one distreict (alone the beach which was sometimes a hundred yards wide, and several miles long.) For reasons which I won't erxplain here, I took it upon myself to singlehandly gerrymander the whole state of Illinois, because I knew I would do it in a non partisan manner, I started at both ends of the state, as tho I were two different groups, and armed with Topographical and standard maps, and the then current census figures, and using those figures, and the maps, and a catographical knowlege, rebuilt the districts . using only pure numbers without financial or comercial, or racial or ethnical considerations , and ended up completing the job with each district census being within two percent of each other. It took me better than two weeks of steady work, and end with a detailed map of the whole state, ( I believe I still have a copy somewhere). I can and will detail exactly how I did it, if requested, and what procedures and guidelines I used to accomplish the deed. To do this in any state and be certain that it was not partisan each team must consist of one democrat, one Republican, and one independent. and using as many teams as deemed necessary Included in each team must be someone with reasonable math skills, map reading skills an some cartographic ability. The total proceedure would be to divide the toral census of the state by the number of districts, and add plus or minus 2 %, (or even less if desired) then following reasonable lines like city or county boundries, roads or natural barriers, build the district to the requied size using census figures then use the same proceedure for the next district except that if the first district were over size, the next should be undrsized, and a running total be maintained to acertain that you always stayed within the desired plus or minus, andn you would always maintain the relative size of each district. It is not hard to do, IF you stick strictly with numbers and boundries without race or economical side issues, and the result is absolutely constitutional and equal. INTERESTING???? Tell your congress person
