Bill, I have to agree. We'll just keep trying to persuade and to keep dreaming. Wow, we just interacted on a blog about political issues without insults, without references extremism from the right or left.. Wow.. I didn't think that was possible on a gazette blog :)"

I guess you could say that we are both dreamers, Jason. You dream of a system that will right the wrongs. I dream of a people who will choose right over wrong even when wrong may profit them. Frankly, neither dream is particularly realistic. People will always be susceptible to putting themselves first, just as government will always be susceptible to corruption. Yet we advocate for what we believe in the hope that we'll make a difference. We can't force change, we can only persuade. Unless you have an Army and are willing to use it.

The point I tried to make is that our system isn't necessarily inherently bad, in comparison with all the known alternatives. We need good people to replace the corrupt ones we have now. For that, we all need to support good people when they run. And we all need to realize that our one interests should not be our only consideration. If we vote our pocketbook, as so many do, expect more of the same. In short, corruption in our governmental system has its roots in a self-serving electorate. Until we all can look past our own interests, we can't really expect our leaders to look beyond theirs.

Bill, one more question. So are we supposed to just be happy with where we are? Should we just be happy with the best off two evils. The idea of America is unique, in fact our founding fathers made changes as they went. The American people have become willing to accept the system we have and we are long over due for a overhaul of how political entities govern. Until the rules of governing change, how we run elections change, nothing will change. Our government needs to restructure and republicans and democrats need to unite on that common purpose.

Bill,
I can't say i totally disagree with your assessment. Many times people get lost in the moment and attack others with different opinions, you and I are both guilty of this. The problem is that we do not listen to each other. For example, it is my belief that the republican position toward teachers is wrong. I am married to a teacher, a person who went back to school as a working mother with four children, living with her mother and assisting with raising two nephews, one of which was severely developmentally disabled. My wife, Mary, did not graduate from high school because she could not adapt to the traditional class room structure, some students need alternative options according to their style of learning. She went to Blackhawk Tech, got her GED, went to Beloit College and doubled majored in 3 1/2 years. During this time, she raised kids and volunteered in the community with homelessness, volunteered at her parish and children's schools. I worked as a restaurant manager for a small business that could not afford to offer me insurance. We used BadgerCare and as soon as Mary got another job, we dropped BadgerCare. Mary went on to go to Edgrewood College and got her Masters in Special Education, and now is close to a having a second Masters in school administration. How is her success any different than any business owner. But all during the Scott Walker experience, I had to listen how she is milking off taxpayers, how have all this money and my wife does not deserve it. She invests over $300 per school year into her classroom, she works over her contracted time. She comes home after dealing with children who have absent parents, kids who only get meals while at school, kids that don;t have a mattress and who have learning disabilities that go ignored outside of school. Why is it the fault of public employees for the financial disaster caused by our politicians, political party power grabs, and the influence of special interest groups.
Our political structure need reform and change and it must be significant. In other blogs and ideas I have presented some ideas. We need to change how our government operates, we need to work together, we need to eliminate the influence of political parties, and we need to restructure the election process. That is the only way we can change and it is the only way we can get candidates that should be running for the positions.

Jason, suppose we fix the system according to your desires. What then? Who decides what's fair, what's equal in your new system? Right now, having a 2 party system, the winners of elections at least have a majority of the electorate behind them. In other words, majority rule. True, there is corruption on both sides, but the elections tend to keep that in check at least to some degree. Take for example Mike Sheridan. He disqualified himself so his electorate retired him even though his district is heavily Democratic.

How would your new system work? Add another party? If we did, then almost certainly, elections would be decided by plurality instead of majority. Suppose your new party became the dominant one. Would't it be prone to corruption just as have the other 2? Of course they would.

If you think some kind of a benevolent autocracy is the way to go, history has already proven the folly of that.

The fact is that fairness and equality flow from people, not parties. Just as does corruption. We need good people in public office if we want good government.

The biggest question facing us now is how do we attract good people to run for office? Right now, interested factions support candidates with huge monetary support who commit to their agendas. They have little interest in the integrity of their candidates. All they want is loyalty to their agenda. Furthermore, look at the way candidates and their families are attacked nowadays. Mainly the power hungry with an eye toward personal gain willingly run that gauntlet. Good people, unwilling to respond in kind, are more than reluctant to run.

The fact is that we've brought this corrupt system down on ourselves. We vote based not on the common good but on what candidate will deliver the most for our own benefit. That's why we see all the garbage about how candidate A wants to kill medicare, candidate B wants to kill food stamps. We let our candidates pander to our desires without regard to whats best for everybody. Anyone who points out the fiscal unsustainability of a system that pays ever more to an ever expanding group of beneficiaries is castigated and denounced as immoral with the assertion that such people don't deserve fair treatment. Is it any wonder why we have such a poor system?

Billnewbie:"Gerrymandering is one of the fruits of winning a majority. It's funny how so many people howl about the unfairness of it when their party has lost an election before redistricting time. Yet when their party has won, the status quo is just fine with them."
This is the number one reason of what is wrong with politics today and both republicans and democrats hold. Each time either party changes control, they have a sense of entitlement to do whatever and however they wish and find it acceptable because the other did it when they were in power. Both parties have lost any concept of representing people but who engage in the action of who can hold the gavel longer to promote ideaological partisanship. Then they blame everyone else for their actions and twist and manipulate to maintain that power. Without changes to the system in which we govern, a focus on fairness and equality and reform, nothing changes.

I would agree with a non partisan agency creating redistricting lines. I don't trust either party to come up with appropriate districts. The Government Accountability Board, in my opinion was a great success from both parties, who supported it. As soon as someone disagrees with the GAB, they are horrible and slanted toward one party or another. I consider the GAB like a good basketball referee. Both teams get good and bad calls and the crowd reacts to each of them when these calls are made. At the end of the game, both teams walk out feeling that the referee was biased and thought the refs did a horrible job - but in reality, the refs did their job and called the game as they saw it and according to the rules provided to them. During the game, both members of the crowd from both teams yell out, "Call it both ways ref." The problem people don't realize is that the referee did call it both ways, it was the biased views of those supporting their team that was not seeing it both ways. It is easy to criticize those entrusted to represent as a nonpartisan entitiy. The problem is those doing the criticism have loyalty and preference for one side or another. The GAB does a fantiastic job and a non partisan redistricting entity would as well.

Cullen and Schultz are on the right track. It is too bad that the party in power cannot see that in the future they may no longer be in control. Iowa has shown that an independent agency can work well, we should emulate them.

The "group" chosen to do the redistricting, would turn out to be as disastrous as the UNaccountable GAB.

Redistricting should be done by a non-partison group. To expect the Parties to do it is to expect the impossible because no one wants to give up the chance to wipe out the competitions chances.

You never presented a valid reason for any change.

Wouldn't the party in power have more say as to who is on the Independent Redistricting Commission?
Would the Independent Redistricting Commission work out in the open, or behind closed doors?
I agree with the sentiments expressed by billnewbie and Northman, the democrats only want change AFTER they have lost control.
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While this will be heralded as a bipartisan effort let's not forget that Senator Schultz is a 'renegade' as far as the Republican party is concerned. The term commonly used is 'RINO'.
Senator Cullen is often looking for a way to look bipartisan while bowing and scraping to the political left.

“Let voters choose their legislators"
Actually, that’s exactly the way it works now. The voters decide which party will be in power at the 10-year point, and then that party draws up the districts. Ahh, but you don’t *really* want the voters involved here, now do you? Let’s see what Cullen & Schultz have come up with:

“That's why we introduced legislation last session to take redistricting out of the hands of legislators and put it in the hands of an Independent Redistricting Commission.”

There’s no mention of who chooses the folks sitting on this commission. But they certainly won’t be elected by the voters. They’ll be *picked* by . . . whom?

Why do you keep advocating taking power AWAY from the voters, and pretending that somehow we’ll all be better off? Why do you think that “independent” commissions, committees, groups, etc, will be fair and unbiased? If you don’t like what the commission does, what is your redress? You didn’t vote them in, so you can’t get rid of them. Tell you what, if you really, really want a commission to decide things for you, I’ll be the one-man commission. And I’ll even be thoughtful enough not to pretend that I’m unbiased. Sound good?

Gerrymandering is one of the fruits of winning a majority. It's funny how so many people howl about the unfairness of it when their party has lost an election before redistricting time. Yet when their party has won, the status quo is just fine with them.

Still I'd have to believe that since the Republicans won the right to gerrymander last, and there's no assurance that they'll be in the same position next time, they may well be open to such a move as Sen. Cullen suggests. I suspect that his fellow Democrats won't like it, though, since they seem to believe that control of the state, and therefore the right to gerrymander, is their birthright and that the recent gains by Republicans are a temporary anomaly.

Hmmmm.. I wonder if "Eyster the Blowhard" would have written this when the "Big D's" as he calls them were redistricting?

What do I think? It all balances out over time, don't mettle.