Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Monday, November 19.

*Obama, in an Emerging Myanmar, Vows Support (Nobody seems to be mentioning this, but Jim Webb has played a major role in U.S.-Myanmar/Burma diplomacy the past few years…)

*International pressure mounts for Gaza truce

*Much as Mark Warner loved being governor, he’s not likely to leave Capitol Hill for Richmond

*Oil Lobbyists Target Sen. Mark Warner In New Ad (“As Washington lawmakers look for new streams of revenue to deal with the bloated federal budget, the American Petroleum Institute is looking to protect the hard-won tax breaks energy companies enjoy.” That really says it all right there. Tell them to go jump in a lake…of high-sulfur oil.)

*House District #13 (Excellent analysis by NLS: Barack Obama and Tim Kaine won “Sideshow Bob” Marshall’s Virginia House of Delegates district by wide margins. So…who do we have running against “Sideshow” next year?)

*Republicans Abandon Romney in Droves After ‘Gifts’ Comments

*Election-weary Virginia looks ahead to 2013

*495 Express Lanes open for rush hour

*Schapiro: A product of new Virginia, Allen undone by newer one

*Editorial: Right electoral fixes, wrong funding source (“Sen. Mark Warner offers a blueprint for better elections that Virginia and other states should follow.”)

*Cat claims third place in Senate race

*Falls Church has the first ‘passive house’ in Fairfax County (“A super insulated, airtight house expected to reduce energy cost by 90 percent.”)

*D.C. area forecast: A dry week which slowly warms up before weekend chill

*Griffin provides D.C. a present (“Star rookie Robert Griffin III backs up his words with a four-touchdown passing effort. His presence is why Washington has a fighting chance this season.”)

Bill McKibben of 350.org is a national treasure. I just wish our politicians, very few of whom are national treasures, would listen to him and take action on climate change now!

P.S. I plan to head into DC for the anti-Keystone rally at 3 pm. Also, I just signed the petition pledging to “stand in the way of the Keystone XL pipeline…will not allow it to pollute our water, dirty our land, and endanger our future…”

Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Sunday, November 18. Also, note the graphic to the right, which shows that despite hysterical teahdist cries to “stop the spending,” in reality (something they’re not well connected with) federal government spending has grown the SLOWEST under President Obama in the past 60 years or so. Hmmmm.

*Israel Warns of ‘Expansion’ as Attack Widens to Media Sites

*Ron Barber defeats Martha McSally

in race for Giffords’s former seat

*States running out of money for roads, transit

*Did climate change controversy cause UVA’s sacking of Teresa Sullivan? (“The University of Virginia board that fired, then reinstated UVA’s president earlier this year owes us all a full account of its actions”)

*With election over, what’s next for coal?

*The gloves come off in Bolling-Cuccinelli race

*Marshall to renew social-issues push (“Ahead of the upcoming session that begins Jan. 9, Marshall has already filed legislation that would allow Virginia employers to opt out of contraception coverage in their health plans and another bill that would make it a felony for doctors to perform sex-selective abortions.”)

*Airports agency must clean house or face skyrocketing tolls

*Voters without proper ID were a small percentage of ballots cast

*Editorial: Downtown’s evolution

*The trouble with Virginia’s plates

*A growing Old Dominion University needs to expand – but how?

*Pr. William County Board chief proposes deep social service cuts

*Arlington buys building for offices, shelter

*Windfall a pleasant puzzle for Charlottesville

*Dulles Airport celebrates 50th birthday Saturday

*Wizards make history with loss to Jazz, 0-8 start

*D.C. area forecast: Still cool, but slightly warmer each day with 60+ possible by Thanksgiving

Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Saturday, November 17.

*Petraeus’ Testimony Makes McCain and Other Conspiracy Theorists Look Like Idiots

*GOP Rep Admits CIA Approved U.N. Ambassador’s Talking Points On Libya  

*Romney becomes persona non grata to a shellshocked Republican party (And the next one who should become personal non grata is off-the-deep end, John “GET OFF MY LAWN” McCain.)

*Stop scapegoating Susan Rice (The attacks on Rice represent Republican illogic, hypocrisy and nastiness at their most extreme.)

*Congressional leaders say they are confident ‘fiscal cliff’ can be averted

*Federal cuts would take heavy toll on small contractors

*Why purple Va. is starting to look rather blue

*It’s hard to be over-the-top when criticizing voting delays

*Local leaders indicate support for Watkins’ transportation funding plan

*6th District Republican Committee “instructs” Bob Goodlatte to oppose John Boehner as House Speaker (Hahahahahaha.)

*After long lines of problems at polls, a long line of questions

*Warner, Connolly Introduce Voting Reform Legislation

*Virginia Board Stands Firm Against Cuccinelli (“Despite pressure from the attorney general, Board of Juvenile Justice refuses to ax protections for LGBT youth”)

*Group planning to file pardon petition to Virginia governor by next week

*Bolling: Tuesday’s lesson is the GOP needs to connect with moderates

*House panel berates MWAA board (I’ve been saying for years that MWAA’s no-bid contracts and cronyism were unacceptable, even corrupt. Nice to see Congress finally catching up…)

*William H. Wood, editor and advocate for civility in politics, dies

*Metro adds screens to kiosks to show train delays

P.S. Oh, and the most important story of the day: Who Killed Hostess Brands and Twinkies? (Short answer: it’s the corporate management, stupid.)

P.P.S. Also see The Iron Dome, Press Bias, and Israel’s Lack of Strategic Thinking.  

Here are a few Virginia (and national) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Friday, November 16.

*What Benghazi Is about: Scandal Envy (“Republicans are livid that Obama hasn’t had his major scandal yet.” Or even a minor one, really. Meanwhile, John McCain’s livid because he lost the election in 2008, because he’s politically irrelevant, and because, well, GET OFF MY LAWN!!!! LOL)

*CIA talking points for Susan Rice called Benghazi attack “spontaneously inspired” by protests (In other words, Republicans ranting and raving about Benghazi are actually attacking the CIA and Gen. Petraeus. Note also that none of these Republicans were “outraged” over Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, or any of the other intelligence fiascos in the Bush administration. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, it’s ok if you’re a Republican – IOKIYAR.)

*Romney’s contempt, continued. (It’s truly astounding that someone with this much contempt for the American people could have been the presidential nominee for a major U.S. political party. WTF?)

*What the future of Virginia looks like

*Editorial: A last-minute reprieve (“Give Bob McDonnell his extension only if he and other GOP governors are serious about insurance exchanges.”)

*McAuliffe names key members of campaign team

*Senator-elect Kaine names chief of staff, transition team

*Va. senators receive cautionary report on state finances at Charlottesville retreat

*Poll: McDonnell remains popular, scores well with women, young voters

*Sen. Warner proposes bill to spark voting reforms in states

*Allen, Kaine advisers look back at hard-fought Virginia Senate race (I was there as well, should have some video later today. For now, let’s just say that Boyd Marcus was a lame excuse a minute. Also, if their “internals” really showed Allen up 5 points on Kaine in the closing weeks of the election, they are/were smoking some powerful stuff. LOL)

*George Allen adviser: Romney’s Virginia effort was ‘worthless’ (Marcus also slammed the Chamber of Commerce and other outside groups, said that Allen wasn’t at all helped by Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly and their crazy bills – like “transvaginal ultrasound” – etc. Fun stuff.)

*Kaine, Allen Advisors: SuperPAC Ads Were ‘Total Crap’ (“Elleithee said the negative ads paid for by outside groups actually helped Kaine.” I agree, what a complete waste of money by Karl Rove, etc.)

*Airports authority often warned about contracts

*Norfolk houses will have to rise

*North Arlington man spearheads effort to help N.Y. victims of Sandy

*Plans for special meeting regarding Delgaudio cancelled

*Homeless shelter still divides Arlington residents, officials

( – promoted by lowkell)

On November 6, Virginia’s presidential vote went to the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, by about 4 percentage points.  The Senate seat went to the Democratic candidate, Tim Kaine, by almost 6 percent.  At the same time, in the eleven congressional races, all of the incumbents won-eight Republicans and three Democrats.  

Does that mean that huge numbers of Virginians were splitting their votes?  Not really.  Nearly six percent more Virginians voted for Democrats in the races for the House of Representatives than voted for Republicans.

How can it be that with less than half of the votes the Republicans won more than two-thirds of the House seats?

A big part of the answer can be given in one word:  gerrymandering.  That’s the process by which politicians and political parties draw district boundaries in order to achieve the results that they want.

Those boundaries are redrawn every ten years, after each Census, by state legislatures.  The election of 2010 was a huge win for the Republicans in the states, as well as nationally. In most of the nation, redistricting was tilted to help elect Republicans.

And it worked.  What happened in the Virginia congressional races happened nationally as well.  The Republicans will retain a sizeable majority in the House of Representatives – 233 to 195 (with seven still in doubt)-even though nationwide, Democratic candidates received a half million more votes than their Republican opponents. (Republicans claim that they won some sort of “mandate” by winning a majority of seats in the House, but you can have no mandate if a majority of the people voted against you.)

And yet gerrymandering is not a partisan issue.  Politicians of America’s major parties have been doing this for two centuries, Democrats as well as Republicans. Ultimately, gerrymandering is not so much about one political party doing wrong to the other, but about the political class doing wrong to the American people.

Politicians gerrymander in order to gain more power.  Power is a zero-sum game, meaning that one player can gain only if another loses.  The power that the politicians and parties gain is power that the people lose.

People lose power because districts are made non-competitive. As has been said before, elected officials determine their voters rather than vice-versa. The result is less choice for the people, and often politicians who stay in office for decades.

It’s time to put an end to gerrymandering.  

In the 21st century, it would be easy to take the politics out of redistricting.  A computer using one algorithm for each of the states could crank out a set of boundaries that plays no favorites. (Begin in a specified corner for each state – e.g. the southwest-and proceed precinct by precinct by set rules until the necessary numbers of people are contained and then draw the boundary, and proceed to draw the next.)

The power taken from the political class would be returned to the people, for whom our whole system of government was established.

The House was the part of government that our founders wanted to be most responsive to the people.  That’s why everyone in the House of Representatives must go back to the people every two years.  And yet the House is the one part of our national system where power can be stolen from the people by gerrymandering. You can’t gerrymander a Senate seat, because the Senate is statewide and there’s no redistricting to do.  You can’t gerrymander the presidential race, because that’s nationwide, and governed by electoral votes cast state-by-state.

But the congressional districts get redrawn every ten years, and that creates a vulnerability in our democracy.

It’s time to close off that opening for corruption.  Let’s do it now when no one knows who will benefit and who will lose from having an honest system in 2021, when it’s time to redistrict again.

Although we can’t predict now whether this improvement in our democracy will benefit Democrats or Republicans, we do know that it will benefit the people of the United States.

**************

Andy Schmookler, formerly a candidate for Congress, is the author of, among other books, the award-winning The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution.  He lives in Shenandoah County, Virginia.