The United States is a democracy. The will of the majority is sacred, and a free and open society is required if citizens are to enjoy its great potential for progress.
Gerrymandering, then, is not just political mischief that has no lasting consequences. It is a crime wounding democracy itself with a false majority, a lie that helps the compromised win an election and stay in office and collect tainted campaign money from out-of-state special interests hell bent on buying specific benefits.
Gerrymandering poisons the entire political process with poor, single-party candidates willing to play fast and loose with their new-gained power, while citizens’ needs and demands are rejected.
A political machine protects the ideologues and opportunists who brag incessantly, while producing the poorest-funded public schools in the nation, rejecting proven gun regulations that save lives, throwing $40 million at an Inland Port no one wants, dismissing air so polluted that EPA standards are violated daily, and attempting to cheat the poor of federal assistance.
In other words, a campaign to crush the best democracy has to offer, while violating the will of the majority.
Utah does not have a democracy. Authentic democracy should create a safer, more enlightened, richer environment, but that’s impossible when compromised policy makers are in charge and on the take. Their goal is to see what they can get away with, a curse thanks to gerrymandering.
But it doesn’t have to stay this way.
Gerrymandering should be illegal, and those on the take removed from office. Wake up Utahns, all of us make up the majority. And we are being betrayed by dishonest, greed-driven, heartless cheats.
Ron Molen, Salt Lake City
