Elbridge Gerry was an interesting man. Born in 1744, Gerry was an important founding father, albeit one now known for something entirely different. He was strongly anti-British and signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. He might have gone three for three, but he refused to sign the new Constitution in 1787 because it did not include a Bill of Rights initially. Elected to the first Congress, Gerry worked hard to have what we know today as the Bill of Rights drafted and ratified for inclusion in the Constitution.

Gerry was part of the remarkable XYZ Affair with France, wherein under President John Adams, Gerry was part of a three-man delegation to France sent to negotiate and hopefully avoid an actual shooting war with the French. The French foreign minister, a gentleman elegantly named Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, demanded the usual bribe often paid in such situations before he would begin negotiations. Well, the Americans were offended, and the phrase “millions for defense, but not a penny for tribute” comes from the XYZ affair. Gerry stayed in France long after his brother delegates returned home, and eventually was able to negotiate a peace between the two countries.

Upon returning home himself, Gerry, who had often run unsuccessfully for various offices, was finally elected governor of Massachusetts, and while governor, the state senate maps were redrawn specifically to benefit his party, and that is why you may kind of know his name, because Elbridge Gerry was the father of the term gerrymandering, meaning to draw district lines not for equal representation, but rather to give an advantage to one party out of balance with that party’s true popularity. Gerry lost the next election, but became James Madison’s vice president, albeit briefly, as Gerry died in office in 1814.

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I thought about Gerry today when I was reading an interesting Colorado Politics story about our own Eighth Congressional District.  Compared to other states, Colorado does have about as balanced a drawing of congressional districts as one can reasonably expect these days. When the 8th was created a few years ago, because the census showed our population had grown enough to take a district away from a state with a declining population (such as my home state of Michigan), it was created to be a truly competitive district.

We certainly have some districts that have a particular party pretty much baked into the soil. Here in CD5, where I live in Colorado Springs, the Republicans hold a massive advantage, as I learned in my quixotic run for Congress back in 2008. U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse is safe in the very blue 2nd CD, and frankly, the other districts are pretty well set as well, with U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert’s carpet bag safely ensconced in the deep red 4th CD.

Other states play around with gerrymandering more than Colorado. Texas is the most dramatic example in recent years, as it seeks to, yet again, conduct a redrawing of congressional districts, not once every 10 years after the census, but now, in the middle of the decade, when they have strong majorities in the state legislature. They did this successfully earlier and hope to do it again. Texas Republicans hope to essentially strip the state of Democratic-leaning districts, and to send an additional five Republicans to the U.S. House.

How can they do this? Well, shamelessly it appears. If you take Dem-leaning districts and chop them up, so that parts of that district now end up as additions to deeply red districts, you can defy the will of the people and get and hold onto power, immorally yes, but apparently shamelessly.

The reprehensible and dishonorable actions by republicans in Texas will, I hope, be finally met with equal vigor by California and that state’s remarkable governor, Gavin Newsom. If the Texas plan goes forward, Newsom proposes to do the same thing, in reverse, in California. As a matter of real and practical politics, I hate that we need to do that, but we do need to do that.

Happily, as noted, Colorado is better than these other states. Though past GOP efforts to radically redraw maps, Texas-style, were defeated in court, currently there is an independent commission that draws districts, as created by voters in 2018 with the passage of Amendment Y. Prior to that, the state legislature drew the maps.

And so, in addition to our weather, the Broncos, and the mountains, our state is to be admired for at least trying to create one of the nation’s profoundly rare things: a competitive congressional district. So far the GOP and the Dems have traded the seat back and forth, and as per the CoPo article noted above, the 8th is considered the second most vulnerable GOP in the country (there is a seat in Nebraska that leans blue and is an open seat, as the Republican is retiring, that is the most vulnerable for the Republicans).

Colorado’s 8th shows competitive districts can be drawn, and we the voters deserve far more of these. With only approximately 40 of the 435 seats in the U.S. House being truly competitive, the voters are ill-served by our current system. And, frankly, neither party, when in power, will likely take steps to reduce its chances of having power in the future, and that’s a shame. Perhaps more states will adopt the redistricting commission idea, but I’m not holding my breath.

So, for now, as we watch the debacle of out-of phase redistricting in Texas and perhaps California, we can again be glad we live in Colorado. And perhaps, just maybe, some day Elbridge Gerry will be remembered for his contributions to our founding and not to a vile system designed to get and keep power in the hands of the few.

Fingers crossed.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.