I’ve seen many proposals for how to reform the ways legislative districts are drawn. Probably the reform most commonly proposed is that a non-partisan panel draw the boundaries. I utterly reject this idea, however, because the appointment process to such a non-partisan panel will be purely political, and out of the reach of voters to impact. There are too many unelected bureaucracies in our government, hindering accountability and responsiveness to the people. According to the US Constitution, the people are sovereign, but when there are so many appointed bureaucrats in government, politicians are trying to remove the influence of the people in the bureaucracy, and, in doing so, the increase the clout the politicians, themselves, have over the bureaucracy, turning politicians into an elite body when they are supposed to be ordinary people, just like the people they represent. The bureaucracy also serves as a scapegoat for politicians, for when government is criticized, they can point the finger at a bureaucracy that no one can touch instead of having to take ownership of the problem themselves, and the bureaucracy will feel no pressure from the people to change, because they are insulated from that pressure, plus the politicians are against any change, which is why they created the bureaucracy, because the status quo is always in their favor.

The best reform for drawing new legislative districts? Make sure every single person on the panel that draws those districts is an elected official, so that when we detest the districts they drew, we, the people, can vote them out and vote someone else in to do it the way that we, the people, want.