In my many years living in California, ballot propositions have come and gone. But none have I felt are as crucial to the moral fabric of our state and country as Proposition 50, the Election Rigging Response Act.
When I was in middle and high school, I often bought and sold original historical manuscripts and letters. One of my earliest purchases at auction was a hand-written contract signed by Elbridge Gerry for a personal loan he made to an acquaintance. Having just learned about gerrymandering in school, it was intoxicating for me to hold in my adolescent hands the handwriting of not only the namesake of this concept, but also a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
My feelings about Prop. 50 mirror the complex feelings I encountered when I interacted with Gerry’s late eighteenth-century penmanship. On the one hand, the concept of gerrymandering repulsed me — and it still does. But somehow, this was overpowered by the emotion of holding in my hands one of the signatures that appears on the Declaration of Independence.
There is something ineffable and transcendent about possessing a piece of paper that was read and signed by a man who was willing to put his life, reputation, and future on the line for what was a highly risky experiment in democracy, freedom, and the rule of law.
Prop. 50 lands me in familiar emotional territory. I don’t think any of us think of it as a noble or ideal concept. Our state affirms this through its esteemed redistricting reforms and the creation of the bipartisan California Redistricting Commission. At our core, we believe in fair and impartial maps.
But American democracy has never been under such a calculated siege by those seeking to wield authoritarian power. Gov. Gavin Newsom is doing what I attempt to do in my own ministry every day: sound the alarm that the vision Elbridge Gerry affirmed when he signed the Declaration of Independence is under attack. This is urgent.
In January, despite my invitations to local colleagues, I was the only clergyperson in the village of La Jolla to publicly sign a pledge to use my ministry, voice, and platform to resist the Trump administration’s immoral agenda. This pledge hangs on the door of my office. Every Sunday, following the benediction, my congregation sings a response that says in part, “God is our only king of this beloved land, if anyone claims to take that name, against them we will stand.”
I recognize my local colleagues’ refusal to join me. Their reluctance might stem more from holding together politically mixed and complex congregations than personal sentiments. But let me assure you, this isn’t the time for middle-ground, milquetoast platitudes. The President of the United States has attacked free speech, is deploying the military against our own cities, and is terrorizing communities with masked ICE agents.
Proposition 50 is our chance to fight back, to rally behind Gov. Newsom, and to be the one state in this republic that will preserve the promise of democracy for future generations.
We have a chance in California to be the leaders of the free world when those in Washington have shunned that mantle of responsibility. Never did I imagine that I would say redistricting would rise to the level of moral imperative. But it has. And I am required by the vows of my ordination to call our attention to it.
Rev. Tim Seery is the pastor of the Congregational Church of La Jolla.
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