I live near Washington DC, so I can watch your tax dollars and mine at work. If you look at the last several congressional elections, you'll see that incumbents who chose to run were re-elected at higher rates of return than were formerly enjoyed by members of the Supreme Soviet.

Example: in the 2004 election, 401 House members sought re-election. 396 made it. That's 98.75%. Makes you proud to be an American.

In nearly every state except the small, single-member ones, boundaries for congressional districts are controlled by the legislature. The Texas gerrymandering that Tom DeLay orchestrated is an extreme example, but not extreme by all that much. My state of Maryland, a Democratic stronghold, gerrymandered my own district to finally eject Republican Connie Morella (who was no friend of Newt).

As prognostications for next year's elections come in, listen unless the GOP goes on to a postdoctoral level of hubris and self-immolation. You'll hear that there are only 40 or so "districts in play" -- out of 436 House seats.

This is representative democracy?

I have no hope for a third party doing much more than throwing a monkey wrench into things (cf. George Wallace or Ross Perot), but each of us might consider how to move the political establishments in our own state to put redistricting into non-partisan hands. It ain't easy (you can read how Iowa has struggled with this, but they've struggled fairly successfully), but it's well worth doing if it makes party apparatchiks on either side stop taking 80% of the vote for granted.