{"article":{"id":9373,"heading":"Fate of Mission Bay Derails San Diego Redistricting Plan","author":"Mark Gabrish Conlan\/Zenger's Newsmagazine","created":"2001-08-19 18:10:49","modified":"2005-08-15 00:37:33","last_modified":"Mon, 15 Aug 2005 07:37:33","article":"

Fate of Mission Bay Derails San Diego Redistricting Plan

Commission Deadlocks 4-3; Five Votes Needed for Approval

by MARK GABRISH CONLAN









































<\/p>\n","contact":"mgconlan@earthlink.net","link":"http:\/\/zengers\/tripod.com\/","address":"P.O. Box 50134, San Diego, CA 92165","phone":"(619) 688-1886","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"The San Diego Redistricting Commission, charged with drawing new boundaries for San Diego's City Council districts, hit an unexpected snag in a dispute over which district should include Mission Bay: District 2, now represented by developer-friendly Republican Byron Wear; or District 6, now represented by environmental activist and progressive Democrat Donna Frye.","numcomment":1,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/08\/fate_of_mi.txt","filesize":"9.1 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/08\/9373.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":9408,"heading":"Redistricting and other shams","article":"This is one of the things that has always bothered me \r\nabout \"electoral democracy\": So many of the important \r\ndecisions are all decided long before you or I get to vote\r\non anything, like the makeup of political districts. Once \r\ncast in stone, these decisions are but rarely revisited,\r\nand if you miss your chance to comment on them, that's it, \r\ntough luck. All the political organizing work in the world \r\noften can't undo the tilted playing field constructed from \r\nthe outset in a non-participatory, undemocratic process \r\nbeforehand.\r\n\r\nThe criteria that go into carving out political districts are \r\nso often arbitrary and made to suit narrow constituencies\r\nor even just single individual incumbents, it makes a mockery\r\nof authentic participatory self-governance, which ofcourse\r\nwe don't have.\r\n\r\nI think the best corrective available in the near future is to have \r\na much more truly partcipatory, direct, and representative government.\r\nWe should take many more decisions out of the hands of elected\r\nofficials and put them back in the hands of citizens and smaller,\r\nmore local organizations: town halls, community planning groups,\r\netc. Plus, we should political districts much smaller and make our\r\n\"representative\" bodies much more representative, to cut out a\r\nlot of the undemocratic gerrymandering inherent in \"electoral\r\ndemocracy.\"\r\n","author":"Guy Berliner","parent_id":9373,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2001-08-22 03:56:44","modified":"2001-08-22 04:29:31","fileurl":""}]}