politics, etc.

A couple of days ago as I watched my umpteenth show about politics, Mohamed asked me when I first became interested in (I think he meant obsessed with) politics.  One of my first memories comes from 1960 when I was fifteen.  The recent census had reduced the number of U.S. Representatives for Iowa by one, so the state had to redistrict.  There were two Democrats among the Congressmen (they were all men in those days), and the Republican goal was to put the two into the same district in order to eliminate one of them.  I decided to create an alternative plan that would put the two in separate districts.  I can remember sitting on the floor of my bedroom, a map of Iowa's 99 counties in front of me, along with a list of the new census data for each county.  There were obviously not only no computers in those days, but no calculators either.  I did have a very primitive adding machine, which had been designed as a children's toy, not for use in business or other serious matters.  That meant I had to double check everything by hand.  I'm not sure how long it took, but I finally came up with a plan, which I sent to a Democratic state representative.  He introduced it in the House, and it became the Democrats' official bill.  Of all the bills introduced, it had the least population variance between the new districts, it had the most contiguity among the counties, and it kept the two Democrats in separate districts.  Of course, the Republican legislature defeated it on a straight party-line vote, and Iowa lost one of its two Democrats in Congress.

The story is especially relevant today after the Supreme Court struck down section four of the Voting Rights Act.  Within days--actually hours--after the decision, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Virginia began to implement laws changing voting requirements, laws that had been on hold as the states had had to wait for preclearance from the Justice Department.  One of the strategies, of course, is to discourage minority voting by requiring photo IDs, by eliminating Sunday voting (always a time Black voters have gone to the polls after church: "first the soul, then the poll"), and by reducing the number of days for early voting.  But a second strategy, perhaps even more effective, has been gerrymandering, packing minority voters into a few heavily Black or Latino districts to make sure that in the rest of the state, their voices carry little weight.  In 2012, for example, Democrats won a majority of the votes in North Carolina for U.S. representatives, but because of the gerrymandered districts, Republicans won 9 seats with only 4 going to the Democrats.  It's estimated that of the 435 Congressional districts, about 400 have been drawn to make them safe for one party or the other with only 30 or so being truly competitive--hence one cause of the polarization of American politics as candidates have to appeal to their "base," since the true contest is the primary, not the general election. 

Republicans have also been shameless in their attacks on reproductive rights.  To use North Carolina again, in a last-minute move, legislators sneaked new, more restrictive abortion regulations into a bill prohibiting the use of Sharia law in the state (surely one of the burning issues of our times).  Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin--all have passed or are in the process of passing laws restricting abortions and closing clinics where they are performed.  At least, these states get national publicity.  In a small state like Kansas with its Republican legislature (all but one "moderate" Republican senator having been purged by the party in the last election) and Republican governor, the voting restrictions and the anti-abortion legislation pass with little or no attention.

Tomorrow, Mohamed and I return to the Cancer Center for the three-month battery of tests.  I can't eat for four hours before the CT scan, though finally I've been told it's all right to have some black coffee.  First comes the blood work; I want to see what my hemoglobin numbers are, since they've been low and dropping for some time now.  I've had so little energy lately that I want to know whether I have to wait for them to hit some magic number before I'm eligible for a transfusion or whether one would help now.  The CT scan will reveal whether the primary tumor continues to grow slowly, the last word being the important one.  Perhaps between the tests and the consultation, we can have lunch with some KC friends.  I'm always hungry, but tired, after 16 hours or so of not eating.