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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Clout

It's a fact of life -- people congregate, and the sparse few who don't join the crowd are at a disadvantage politically:

Redistricting is underway in Indiana, and Farm Bureau is concerned rural communities may suffer as a result. Based on the latest census data, state and federal congressional districts will be redrawn to reflect shifts in population. Bob Kraft, with Indiana Farm Bureau, worries that rural areas may lose their political power, “By definition, rural is where the people aren't and urban is where the people are; and, when you have to have legislators represent an equal number of people, urban areas are going to be more heavily represented.”

The bureau wants lawmakers to keep rural communities together and not "lump them in with large urban areas" and thus dilute their clout. But following its suggestion to "put a lot of rural counties together to make up a district" would give them disproportionately more influence.

This is one area in which I'd opt for diversity. When they were toying with city-county consolidation here and talking about new countywide districts, some favored districts that would be concentric circles -- each district would have a distinct set of constituents -- mostly urban dwellers in one, suburbanites in another, etc. I'd prefer the "pie wedge" district, staring with the narrow end in the city and expanding to the wide end at the county line. That way, every district would have some of each type of constituent in roughly the same proportions. Each district representative would have to consider everybody's interests, not just one narrow group's.

Comments

William Larsen
Mon, 04/11/2011 - 10:00am

Representation is a word used a lot. Let us take a state that has 10 US congressional seats. Let us also assume that 10% of the state

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