The Moose is looking for some good ways to de-fang the extremes on the left and the right.
In case if you haven't noticed, the Moose is a mammal of the vital center. He eschews both Pat Robertson and Michael Moore.
The Moose finds that the U.S. House of Representatives has been transformed into an infuriating institution. It is increasingly becoming a moderate free zone. This is in part due to gerrymandered districts that guarantee incumbent re-election. The Washington Post noted this phenomenon in an editorial on Sunday,
What is to be done? One major driver of polarization is not rooted in unavoidable change: This is the scandalous way in which electoral districts are drawn for the House of Representatives and state legislatures. The redistricting triggered periodically by the census has become an opportunity for party leaders to create politically homogeneous districts that ensure incumbents' re-election and remove incumbents' incentive to represent the political center. Nobody wants to censor television or stifle citizens groups such as the Sierra Club and the National Rifle Association. But the incumbent protection racket in Congress is a different matter. It is offensive in itself, and the polarization of the nation's political elites provides a further reason to break it.
The Moose believes that a key element in any reform agenda is non-partisan redistricting along the lines of the Iowa model. The left and the right might not like it - and that would be a good thing.
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