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On the opinion page of today's Ithaca Journal, Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton has a guest column that should be remembered for years to come as a classic case of how to argue for inaction. She says she's "interested" in an independent commission, but apparently dreads the details of how it would work as "the devil is in the details."
She only comes vaguely close to acknowledging that having Republicans draw the lines for the State Senate and the Democrats draw the lines for the Assembly is a really really truly horrible idea, one that ensures that legislators turn over their seats mostly when the leadership, not the voters, want them to go:
Bipartisan systems have often been a check on corruption, as in our electoral system, which is run in a bipartisan fashion. On the other hand, it runs the danger of bias toward maintaining the status quo.
Praise the current system first, then back off slightly with a comment about the status quo. The piece is brilliantly short, long enough only for her to express her concerns about solutions without ever expressing whether or not there might possibly be a problem. Bringing Assemblyman Parment, who chaired the effort creating the current lines for the Assembly, in for a visit, certainly doesn't sound like she thinks that there may be a problem.
Amazing - and depressing. It may be a "complicated issue", but it wouldn't take a perfect solution to make matters a lot better than they are today.
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