Jenni Dye, a member of the Dane County (WI) Board of Supervisors representing Supervisory District 33, which includes rural areas and some suburban areas of the City of Fitchburg, Wisconsin, chairs one of the most powerful Dane County Board subcommittees: the redistricting subcommittee of the county board’s executive committee.
Instead of waiting until after the 2020 U.S. Census, which is a little less than 4 1/2 years away, to pick and choose her own constituents by redrawing her own district, Jenni is supporting a great idea: taking elected officials completely out of the Dane County redistricting process altogether and creating a non-partisan citizens’ redistricting commission:
As the Dane County Board prepares for redistricting in 2021, supervisors are leaning toward having community members take on more power in the process than they have in decades.
The Redistricting Subcommittee of the Executive Committee of the County Board is tentatively recommending the county establish an impartial redistricting commission consisting of only citizen members — no elected officials.
“I think it’s a step in the right direction,” said District 33 Supervisor Jenni Dye, who chairs the redistricting subcommittee. “We need to have a process where the people of Dane County are sure that they are electing their supervisors and not that supervisors are choosing their voters.”
I strongly believe that elected officials in this country should not have the power to literally pick and choose their own constituents by redrawing the districts which they run for public office in. Having ordinary citizens, not elected officials, redraw legislative districts, whether it be local, state, or federal legislative districts, is, if done correctly, a far more fairer method of drawing legislative districts.
If only there were far more elected officials who, like Jenni Dye, care about the integrity of the political system, America would be far better off.
The Progressive Midwesterner 