Not that this is necessarily from OUR Congressman…

Dear Constituents:

 The district in which you live and which I represent in Congress is soon going to change its borders. Do not be alarmed.

 As you may know, in our system the voters do not choose the government; the government chooses the voters. Every 10 years, following the federal census, the districts of members of the House of Representatives are modified to reflect changes in the population. As strange and unfair as it seems, the power of redrawing districts for the U.S. Congress is in the hands of the state legislatures.

 The party that controls the state legislature engages in what is known as “partisan gerrymandering” — the drawing of district lines to maximize the chances that members of the controlling party will be elected to Congress. Thanks to the miracle of gerrymandering, the majority party can draw the lines so that members of the other party are a minority in most or all U.S. congressional districts in the state.

 Thank God for partisan gerrymandering. I owe my many terms as your member of Congress to the fact that our beloved district is rigged. After the 2000 Census, members of my party in the state Legislature drew the borders of my district to avoid the neighborhoods of people likely to vote against me, with limbs going out to rope in likely voters. The district goes down the highway, veers away at a right angle, wriggles through a parking lot and down an alley, flares out to take in an apartment complex and then shrinks again to avoid a suburb. Some people think the district looks like a boa constrictor that swallowed a porcupine. Others think it looks like Bart Simpson squashed by a steamroller. I think it’s beautiful.

Click here to read the entire article posted on Salon