Home of Today's Common Sense

Published Brownsville Herald September  29, 2008

Four years ago one of the big issues was gerrymandering – the alignment of the election districts to give one political party an advantage. I wonder whether we will see such a benefit as a reality. I suspect that the effort and resources used to accomplish the gerrymandering were misspent and would have been better spent on other things like education; I seriously doubt that it will cause political mayhem as was pronounced. I cannot accept that anarchy or chaos will result.
As a one time employee of the brilliant pollster Dan Rivera, I became interested in the demographics of the Valley and continued that interest to my later benefit as a business consultant. The Congressional Districts are determined based on a census of “all persons” in the United States. Courts have decided that this does not mean just citizens who can vote but everyone; permanent residents and undocumented residents as well. As the demographic makeup of the Rio Grande Valley is a predominately ethnic (Hispanic), with close family ties outside the U.S., there are higher percentages of non-citizens than there are in some other regions of the state. That translates into fewer folks that can vote having a greater influence on the outcome of an election than in other districts. More »

 Published Brownsville Herald September 7, 2008

We are now deep in the middle of the election season which will change the priorities and goals of centers of governmental power as well as the names of those who would rule or less likely lead us for the next cycle.

The most important of the elections are for members of the House of Representatives. These are the folks that initiate all bills for raising revenue which holds the purse strings for all the promises the other bureaucrats make.

After becoming familiar with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers (essays written at the time debating the text of the Constitution)I have come to believe that our founders made the term two years in length with the intention that Representatives would be citizen-statesmen returning home after a one or two terms. The ideal would be that fresh ideas of public need would continually become part of Congressional considerations and our representatives would not become the out of touch professional rulers that many have. It frequently seems the longer a Representative stays in office the more reports of perceived corruption and influence peddling arise. More »