Ciao!

Nice column in the Herald, is this a regular gig for you?

I agree elections for Congress is very important, so important that I really wish people would focus more on the relatively unsexy issue of gerrymandering. Here in MA, the former Speaker of the MA House (Tom Fineran) decided a couple of years ago to fiddle with the congr. districts so that his friends could get better districts and his enemies would have worse districts. Unlike Tom Delay's schenagians in TX, Fineran didn't do it to increase the Dems in Congress--since MA is basically a one-party state.

Gerrymandering is such a problem that even though every two years 435 members of the House are up for election, the districts have been shaped into such safe districts that only about 30-40 House races are competitive. Many of the 435 members don't even have an opponent, or if they do it's either token opposition from Reps/Dems or a third party.