Gerrymandering in Montana

For years, we Montanans liked to think of “gerrymandering” as one of those imported political diseases—something that happened in faraway, untrustworthy states with names like “Illinois” or “California,” where maps are drawn by political cartographers who believe in geometry the way Picasso believed in accurate faces.

But here’s the bad news: you don’t have to cross the Mississippi to find district lines that look like they were drawn by a caffeinated raccoon. Nope—right here in Montana, our political mapmakers have been busy with their crayons, and wouldn’t you know it, the Democrats in places like Missoula and Billings have mastered the fine art of bleeding out.

Picture it: Missoula’s bright blue blob doesn’t just sit politely within its boundaries—it sends out little tendrils of voter influence like a political fungus, creeping into neighboring areas to “share” its progressive wisdom with people who didn’t ask for it. Same in Billings—little blue veins running out like an infection in a bloodstream, designed with surgical precision to dilute and marginalize Republican voters until a cow in Mineral County is somehow represented by a latte enthusiast in downtown Missoula.

The result? A “fair” system in which “every vote counts”—provided it was cast in a district custom-engineered to count their way. Meanwhile, Republicans, who actually represent the political heartbeat of much of Montana, get shortchanged on representation like a rancher trying to sell a prize bull at a vegan farmers market.

We need a better system—one where district boundaries make sense to both a map and a human brain. Keep communities together. Let voters choose their politicians, not the other way around. Because if lines were drawn reasonably, without all this squiggly partisan cartography, Republicans would enjoy the representation they actually earn… instead of watching it get siphoned off through a political straw from Missoula to hills beyond and yonder.

Until then, we’ll just keep admiring our electoral maps—those colorful Rorschach tests of democracy that somehow always spell “D” when you squint.