Americans love to lament how little Americans actually care about participating in their popular democracy. These same Americans, who forget that the presidential two-party system inherently has lower voter turnout rates than a proportional representation system (and don’t give the issue much thought), usually don’t notice the little things politicians do to discourage public participation in government, like holding public hearings about congressional and state redistricting in New York state at 10am on a weekday.
Tip of the hat to the Brooklyn Politics Blog (frequent recipient of our hat-tipping), which didn’t need to say much beyond the obvious fact that weekday morning public hearings ensure that most working people will not be able to voice their concerns about the always dubious gerrymandering redistricting process. Imagine if Election Day wasn’t on a workday, too. More people might show up to vote. Gasp.
Rumors are now floating around that a public hearing on the idiotic nature of public hearing scheduling will be held at 4am next Thursday for nine minutes. We’ll be live-tweeting it.
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