written from Upper Rock, Wisconsin (find your bioregion/watershed)

Toward a Bioregional State:

Bioregional Letter #23

Deal with gerrymandered districts first,
sustainability and democracy will follow more readily:

the message is getting through

To: Fair-Voter's

From: Mark Whitaker, University of Wisconsin-Madison
dissertator, researcher at The Bioregional State
http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~mrkdwhit/bioregionEC.htm

Re: evaluating IRV as an election strategy, better to start with
gerrymandered districts--and get IRV later, more easily, out of party
competion that ensues?

To everyone concerned about election reform strategies in the United
States:

Read the attached press release about Jim Young's campaign in
Wisconsin for empirical evidence of a different route.

Personally, I feel as I have always felt and said so months ago--
that a reliance on IRV as a first rung one-stop "electoral reform"
strategy by the Center for Media and Democracy is politically
shortsighted because voting is more than the voting rules: it
is the issue of the gerrymandered districts AT BASE instead of the voting
rules primarily.

Let's take an hypothetical situation. Let's say that IRV has
become successful everywhere in the United States. However, if elections
are still corrupt because of district gerrymandering, you would still have
corrupt elections in an IRV framework if the districts are
unchanged--first.

Another benefit of dealing with the districts first, is that
you would certainly gain your achievements of IRV if the districts were
competitive from the get-go and the districts were thus changed out from
under the voting rules FIRST and before any push for IRV that will only
come from heightened party competition amongst all parties instead of
'enlightened despotism' strategies of convincing the public themselves en
masse.

Strategically, people DO respond to this type of information
about gerrymandered district more often--it is more readily understandable
in my experience with countless conversions--far more than with IRV.

Even social scientifically, your own research, for crying out
loud, show that the gerrymnandered districts are the predominant factor in
predicting incumbency and election outcome. Why do you change your tune
irrationally and recommend IRV as the first choice of election reform
stratgies--when you yourselves find the opposite? Take this as an
critical evalutation of what you are doing only in terms of
recommendations. It is combined with an admiration of what you are doing
as a social scientific resource.

Personally, I recommend a bit more than Young's position: make the districts based
on watersheds, the ultimate unco-optible local geographic statement.
However, Young's position on nonpartisan electoral district commissions
are a requirement of any working democracy and a way towards getting
accurate evaluative feedback to the state policy from voters
about environmental degradation influenced policies.

Curious, and Cordially,

Mark Whitaker
University of Wisconsin-Madison

APPENDIX

and read this press release on how this is being done in Wisconsin:

Green's Young Disgusted With Scandals: Sets New Course for WI
by Amy Heart, Media Coordinator 8:33pm Thu Oct 24 '02
address: 239 E. Main Street, Sun Prairie, WI phone: (608) 837-6987
jy4gov@young4governor.org

With elected representatives in the state legislature and senate awash in
controversy, Green Party gubernatorial candidate Jim Young today set a
course for restoring democracy to Wisconsin.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 24, 2002

Contact:
Jim Young for Governor Campaign
(608) 837-6987
jy4gov@young4governor.org

Amy Heart, Media Coordinator
(715) 345-2739
amyheart@charter.net

YOUNG DISGUSTED WITH SCANDALS; SETS NEW COURSE FOR WI

SUN PRAIRIE - With elected representatives in the state legislature and
senate awash in controversy, Green Party gubernatorial candidate Jim Young
today set a course for restoring democracy to Wisconsin.

"The public trust has been violated," said Young. "These offenders should
be in jail."

But Young also stated that it?s more than just a matter of prosecuting a
few bad actors. "The two major parties have been 'playing' this crooked
system for thirty years," said Young.

Young said the state needs real reforms, but contends that won't happen
with our current representatives from the two established parties.

"Wisconsin will not get out of this budget mess by the Democrat and
Republican parties policing themselves," he said, noting that both Jim
Doyle and Scott McCallum opposed recent attempts by Rep. Mike Ellis to
rein in special interests. [See statements following the release for
documentation]

A DIFFERENT ELECTION CHANGE STRATEGY BEING USED IN WISCONSIN THAN
FAIRVOTE.ORG'S RECOMMENDATIONS--THAT IS FAR FROM MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE TO
FAIRVOTE BY THE WAY

Young said that, if elected, he would begin work immediately to put into
law the "Clean Sweep Initiative" recently proposed by the nonpartisan
Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Key features include:

1. Campaign finance reform which would limit spending for all state races,
provide public financing grants to qualified candidates, ban fundraising
during the budget process, cut limits on the size of allowable donations,
require full disclosure of "issue ads", and ban out-of-state
contributions.

2. Restructuring the state Elections and Ethics boards to make them
nonpartisan and give them the resources to rigorously enforce Wisconsin's
election laws.

3. Ending the use of public funds to pay legal bills for any legislator or
legislative employee who comes under criminal investigation.

4. Eliminating all caucus staff positions that were retained after the
caucus offices were abolished last year.

5. Putting legislative redistricting decisions in the hands of a
nonpartisan citizen commission and ending the use of public funds to pay
attorneys to represent the interests of certain parties or individual
lawmakers.

For more information on the Clean Sweep Initiative:
http://www.wisdc.org/pr102102.html

For more information on Jim Young?s campaign: www.young4governor.org or
(608) 837-6987.
For more information on the WI Green Party: www.wigp.org

# # #

DOCUMENTATION ON ELLIS BILL

Wisconsin Democracy Campaign?s Mike McCabe about Doyle's stance on SB 104
(12/01 Wisconsin Democracy Campaign press release):

Attorney General James Doyle, a Democratic candidate for governor,
responded that he did not support SB 104 in a letter that outlined
objections strikingly reminiscent of those expressed on numerous occasions
by the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state teachers union.

"His letter could have been written by WEAC lobbyists. He took the words
right out of their mouths," McCabe said, noting what the attorney general
termed "practical and constitutional questions" regarding independent
spending by special interest groups. "Doyle is like so many opponents of
campaign finance reform. He likes the word ?reform,? but is not fond of
the actual legislation."

McCabe called the legal questions Doyle cited a lame excuse for ducking
leadership responsibility. "Opponents of every reform bill from the Ellis
bill here in Wisconsin to McCain-Feingold at the national level say if
reform is enacted it might be struck down by the courts. The only way you
can be sure that a reform bill will pass muster in court is if you don?t
try to solve any problems that have emerged since 1976," he said,
referring to the year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark Buckley
v. Valeo campaign finance case.

- END -

www.young4governor.org

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