As Texas Republicans try to muscle a rare mid-decade redistricting bill through the Legislature to help Republicans gain seats in Congress – at President Donald Trump’s request – residents in Austin, the state capital, could find themselves sharing a district with rural Texans more than 300 miles away.
The proposed map chops up Central Texas’ 37th Congressional District, which is currently represented by Democrat Rep. Lloyd Doggett, will be consumed by four neighboring districts, three of which Republicans now hold.
One of those portions of the Austin-area district was drawn to be part of the 11th District that Republican Rep. August Pfluger represents, which stretches into rural Ector County, about 20 miles away from the New Mexico border.
Local representation is still possible with proportional voting, when voting I get an A2 paper with all the possible people sorted per party per rank of importance
I can choose to vote for my local politician, if their party doesn’t get enough votes to get my voted person in, it gets counted to the person above them in the party rank
That doesn’t sound like local representation to me. And, honestly, I’d like parties to have less influence on our elections, not more, but I guess that’s a pipe dream.
What happens if you prefer a local politician that is an independent / has no permanent party affiliation? Bernie Sanders and Joseph Lieberman have held federal office without a party affiliation.
Most single issue politicians create a party and with the people they’re working with, Bernie is not doing everything on his own.
There are tones of politicians from a local region in different parties.
To be clear we have 15 parties in government atm.
Not to mention local government (per municipality) is elected the same way