Dear Editor,

The Texas attempt to gerrymander ever more voting districts ensures that the most extreme candidates will get voted in. Moderation, political discourse, compromise and dissent are suppressed. This is a naked power grab by Trump, worried that his policies on the economy are in the toilet, and his approach to immigration is too.

Trump claimed loudly that the 2020 election was rigged despite contrary evidence and advice from ALL his closest advisors and family members. Now he wants to turn around and rig the 2026 midterm elections. I don’t believe the Republicans are “entitled” to this mid-decade electoral gimmick, creating an ever-larger rubber stamp for his unpopular policies.  

A previous power grab happened when Senator Mitch McConnell blocked President Obama’s opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court Justice (Merrick Garland) in March 2016, with the election eight months away. McConnell said it was “too close to the election.” Then, at the end of Trump’s first term, when a seat opened on SCOTUS with only 38 days till the election, Republicans hypocritically jammed the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett through. Thus began the most right wing, pro executive power, anti-regulation, court in modern history.

In addition to dumping Roe v Wade, their immunity decision in favor of Trump gave him license to break the law. The question before the court at that time was whether he had broken the law by ALL of his many actions to fight the peaceful transition of power to Biden. The Supreme Court ignored that issue and conjured up immunity.

One wonders why Trump, twice impeached and a convicted felon, needs immunity while LBJ or Nixon didn’t while conducting the Viet Nam War. The Supreme Court gave Trump a get out of jail free card.  

I worry about our small “d” democracy when only the most extreme candidates are voted in. The potential tit for tat response of the Dems in California, Illinois and New York could make extreme gerrymandering the norm. It's like an athlete, knowing that an opponent is taking performance enhancing drugs, decides that he or she must take them, too, to compete. The result is more people "doping" and true “competition” is lost. 

The number of congressional seats that are actually competitive is woefully few, especially in Texas. California and other blue leaning states have passed non-partisan commissions to set up their voting districts, to be more “small d” democratic. Now these states are considering going back on these non-partisan initiatives, much like the “doping” example. They feel the imperative to fight fire with fire. 

It’s hard to blame them when Republicans have hypocritically and historically refused to play fair. One person, one vote would fix it. After all, the vote of a Democratic voter in a deep red state or a Republican voter in a deep blue state are virtually pointless. Or at a minimum, throw out the “winner take all” provision of the Electoral College so their vote matters. Truth be told, without the distortions of the Electoral College, which favors small red states, this whole mess would be moot.  

We know in our hearts that Americans are best served when elections are truly competitive and candidates are forced to compromise. The Texas Shenanigans are one more nail in our democracy’s coffin…in this tragic race to the bottom where greed and corruption abound.  

Bill Thibedeau

Gilpin County