I've already posted a link.

Americans understand that their democratic system has failed them in this regard -- whether they attribute that to Republican gerrymandering as described in the above article; or to the advantage moneyed interests have in being able to control the congressional delegations of small over-represented states; or, in the case of Democrats, the failings of their own party representatives to do the people's bidding.

Taxing the rich and printing more money will solve much of the problem. The money being spent on the military and intelligence is a huge area which might be addressed on the spending side. Also the many subsidies to banking and energy interests.

Here's the thing, Dems outnumber Reeps 1.5 to 1 in California. There are independents, but they are split and divided, so they really don't weigh one way or the other in a winner-take-all system. So here's what happens under that scenario:

If you allow the legislature to do redistricting, they're going to *try* to protect incumbents, yes. But in order to do that, they have to create districts that are strongly D and strongly R. That may protect some incumbents, but it also insures the minority party some representation. And in fact, you saw a pretty proportional outcome in the seats. Third parties and indies were still shut out (as they will be in any winner-take-all system, including after these "reforms"), but D vs R was roughly proportional. D's outnumber R's 1.5 to 1 in the population, and they outnumbered R's roughly 1.5 to 1 in the legislature. It actually matched pretty well.

Plus, you had the added benefit that some of these heavily D and heavily R districts weren't really great incumbency protection vehicles, because they opened the incumbents to primary challenges (at least pre-jungle primary).

But look what happens when you try to break up those districts and make them more competitive. Well let's take the most extreme example... suppose it were *possible* to make every district as competitive as possible, which is to say have every district balanced exactly the way the state is between the parties. What will happen? Well, as a matter of fact we can see what will happen, because we have a handful of those districts -they're called statewide offices! And what happens in those elections? Democrats win roughly 100% of the time. The margins vary depending on the individual race dynamics, but that 1.5 to 1 edge is hard and getting harder for Rs to overcome.

So what happens in any in-between scenario? That is, when you break up the party protection gerrymandering but can't get things to be totally balanced. That's what the redistricting commission did. Well you'll likely push the Ds from 60% majorities to 2/3+ majorities, which is exactly what happened.

So when you say it's been a "good thing for California," maybe you're right, if you believe that 2/3 majorities in perpetuity plus total one-party dominance at the statewide level is a good thing for California.

But is it democracy?