With respect to the Indy Star’s editorial entitled: Terminate politics of district maps which suggests that California should end partisan Congressional district making, I’d just say: Texas first.
Partisan district making is a bad idea in every state, and it’s a reality in most states. Getting rid of it would be excellent in an ideal world. But, at least part of the move afoot in California to maximize the number of Democratic representatives from that state is in response to Tom DeLay’s successful effort to redistrict Texas — mid-decade — to add Republicans to the U.S. House of Representative.
So, we have a kind of prisoner’s dilemma here. In the prisoner’s dilemma game theory scenario, where both sides do the right thing, everybody prospers a bit. Where one does right and one does wrong, the one doing wrong *really* prospers while the one doing right *really* suffers. And, where both do wrong, they both suffer a little. So, if you can trust your counterpart, you do right. If you can’t trust your counterpart, you’re a fool to do the right thing.
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