Unfair?

Over at the fine http://www.misssissippipolitics.com/ site, I've gotten a bit of criticism for intimating that Mr. Frank's House district was gerrymandered. In fact, the quote reads,

I read the first few entries, but stopped when I got to the one where
youcomplained about how Franks' district was drawn--because he had no say inthe
matter, as I'm sure you must know.Cheers,TH

Now, that's pretty well absurd. Mississippi, if you'll remember, was the home of the infamous "tornado plan," in 2002, which would have put Tupelo and the Memphis suburbs in a district with the north Jackson suburbs. Also in 2002, the state legislature redrew their own districts-which, of course, is their perogative under both the US and Mississippi constitutions. A number of articles appeared on the subject, including one which criticized the legislature for not creating a new, majority-black district in the Hattiesburg area.

Of course, sitting legislators had a great deal of say in how their districts were drawn. The whole point is to protect yourself by arranging a district more favorable to you. And who served on the committee? Good Franks friend Steve Holland, from the adjacent District 16.

The file can be found http://www.msjrc.state.ms.us/pdf/house_plan_map.pdf there. Now, is District 19 the worst case? Maybe; Districts 13, 26, 34, 37, 45, 54, 74, 84, 93, 95, and 97 are worse on the geographic end. But then there's the rub again; you have to leave either end of the District to get to the other.

But back to the main point: Anyone who can look at that map and not see gerrymandered districts-and not include House 19 in there-is either crosseyed like one of my old girlfriends or just blind to the issue. But I'm sure Franks-with one of his biggest campaign supporters on the committee-never had a bit of influence on how it was drawn.

I also believe the Earth is flat.