The dirty truth about redistricting

     I see where the commissioners are asking to change the rules for putting together a committee to set up redistricting. The question is, Why?
     We did this before, and the rules didn't matter then.
     It goes to motive. The idea is to be fair and equitable when making the rules by which rule makers make the rules. Silly? Duh! This is politics we're talking about, and this, aside from out and out graft, is one of the dirtier aspects of what can only be called gamesmanship.
     Yes, I am a cynic. A cynic is an idealist who has stepped on the rake of reality and had the handle smack him in the face.
     I thought our motives were noble when the board on which I served sought to have an apolitical committee to study and make recommendations on redistricting. Noble, perhaps, but naive, oh, yes.
    The Democrats were willing to work with the commissioners to vet members of the redistricting committee after the 2004 elections, but the Republicans were having none of it. They had a strategy, and when all was said and done, they got what they wanted.
    The rules were that the commissioners assign the task of naming three members apiece to the respective central committees. A chair is chosen independently of the central committees. We wanted to broaden the participation, but the GOP central committee and the more stridently conservative clubs in the county had it in mind to carve the county into districts that would accomplish two things: One, to ensure that no Democrat be elected in any of the five districts, and Two, to gerrymander the districts to weaken Julia Gouge, who had a tradition of winning the most votes in county elections, even though she was not always the top vote-getter in Hampstead and a couple of other areas.
     With some of the activists, who worked behind the scenes and were willing to back up their wish lists with money, the primary goal may have been to weaken Gouge.
     Getting it right for the benefit of the county's residents was the last thing on their list.
     We did it by the rules, and the redistricting committee did it by the rules. People in the eastern part of the county would have representation, and likewise in all the regions of the county that were linked by traditions, business and schools and churches -- it was respectful of communities.
     And then the sleazy work began. By the time it was all over, the whole process had been traded and manipulated, votes in Annapolis had been bargained back and forth, and the resulting district plan was a mess that had Manchester and Taneytown in the same district; split communities in south Carroll, and linked the country of New Windsor with the suburban sprawl of Mount Airy. And everyone who had the right to vote for a majority in the county office was now reduced to accepting a minority of one representative among five. What a deal.
     It at least achieved the goal that Del. Donald Elliott set forth when it all began:  "I don't see any reason why the county can't do things the way we do them in Annapolis."
     Just goes to show you: What he thought was an argument in favor of five commissioners by district, others of us thought was the argument against it.
     I don't blame Elliott. He really did not know any better.
     Forget the speeches by politicians who run as populists. When the decisions are made by those who have the real hammer, they'll let you know where the new districts will be.