Congressman Allen Boyd, co-sponsor of The Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act:

"I’ve been in representative government for 17 years. I live in a little small county of about 12 or 13 thousand people in north Florida, the only county that stretches from the Georgia border to the Gulf of Mexico. All those 17 years, prior to 2002, I represented the small county I live in, grew up in. I’m a fifth generation farmer there, and my kids are sixth generation farmers on the same dirt. Obviously I went to school there, go to church there, do my shopping there, go to the post office there. After 2002, a third of that county, and interestingly enough, it’s the middle third, became represented by a person 150 miles away… The same people I go to church with, go to the grocery store with, go to the post office and see. The same people who call me when they have a Social Security problem or veterans problem or an IRS problem – my neighbors, they call me. You know what we do? We serve them. However, when they go to the ballot box, they do not have an opportunity to express their feelings about the person who represents them in Congress, because the name they see on the ballot comes from Jacksonville, 150 miles away.

"This is not about politicians, not about Allen Boyd or Jim Cooper or Zach Wamp or any other elected official. This is about how the American people have an opportunity to engage in the democratic process. What’s going on now around in these state legislatures, with the partisan political gerrymandered districts is happening on both sides. Florida does it one way by one party, and Georgia did it with the opposite party. It is absolutely a disgrace, and it doesn’t bode well for our democracy."

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