If representation is the purpose, then we need more of it.

Virginia is the latest front for the gerrymandering wars, joining Texas and California. The gerrymandering wars have less to do with the fairness of representation for voters in California, Texas, or Virginia and everything to do with the power in the House of Representatives.

My most recent read for the What the Book podcast, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, can help us understand our current situation. The book is a brilliant story about inner turmoil and how tension within oneself can reverberate through our lives. In the story, the author debates the classical and romantic viewpoints of the world.

“A classical understanding sees the world primarily as underlying form itself. Romantic understanding sees it primarily in terms of immediate appearance.”

The romantic view sees this beauty, while the classical view sees the purpose. The romantic sees the benefits, while the classical sees the work. Rights are beautiful, but the responsibility to uphold them takes effort among many different people.

A surface-level view is to say that the other side is bad and that we have to stop them by any means necessary. This view sees the government as power and whoever controls the power writes the rules.

But what about its purpose? What is it meant to do? Government is meant to represent the people.

As a congressional aide and young congressman back in the 1930s and 1940s, Lyndon Johnson excelled at fulfilling the responsibilities of the power he sought to exercise. He went out of his way to build relationships with the people who could help his district the most. He ensured constituents were responded to in a timely manner.

Johnson grew up the son of a public servant in the harsh Texas Hill Country. Life wasn’t easy. It was sometimes hard to see the beauty. Johnson learned from his parents the work it took to survive. Lyndon and his dad didn’t always see eye to eye. Lyndon wanted more.

The reason Johnson ended up becoming Master of the Senate and later President wasn’t just because he had a romantic view of the world. He had a classical view as well. He could see power, but he also put in the work.

But right now, our politicians on both the right and the left are telling us that they need more power to fix everything. They aren’t willing to do much other than fight for that power. They say our representation, our needs, and their responsibilities are secondary to winning power.

When Johnson was in Congress, the representation ratio was 1 rep for every 300,000 people. He and his staff were diligent in responding to constituents. Yet today, some staff say it takes 80-100 emails on the same topic before the Congressperson will address the issue. Getting a response is a crapshoot, and most of the time it’s a form response.

How can politicians ask for more power when they don’t take care of the responsibilities they have now? They are spreading themselves too thin, even though they can’t handle the current workload.

Why should we trust any party that is after power without upholding their responsibilities first? Johnson was a man after power, but he also upheld his responsibilities. And he was able to do so because the system encouraged it.

I find myself politically homeless because there isn’t a faction in either major party that is serious about reform. They aren’t serious about the responsibilities of power. There is a reason that apportionment was written into the Constitution; it’s not good to ignore it for 100 years.

Since 1929, the House of Representatives has been capped at 435 members, when a representative represented about 220,000 people. Nearly a hundred years later, the population has tripled, meaning that a representative now represents nearly 800,000 people. The imbalance in growth has shifted access and accountability away from everyday Americans and toward a select few who have the means and opportunity to reach their representative.

When representation collapses, politics becomes a fight over power.

I am a Republican, but I don’t see Democrats as the enemy. I see them as my friends and neighbors. I see them as people who see the same thing that I see. Things are broken, and we need leaders to fix them. But it’s unfortunate because our leaders aren’t trying to fix them; they’re fighting for power. Every election is a zero-sum election. Every election is the end of the world if your team doesn’t win. Except that it isn’t. And it just keeps going.

In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the author discusses the problems with technology. He writes, “The way to solve the conflict between human values and technological needs is not to run away from the technology.”

Government is a concentration of power–– but the purpose of government is to represent people, and these two things are in conflict. The answer is not to run away from government, or to destroy it. The way to resolve this is to embrace self-government.

Right now, the capped system rewards fighting for power instead of representing people. Our problem is that we are still letting it happen. We want rights, but we aren’t upholding our responsibilities, and as a result, our representatives aren’t either.

In American history, we have been lucky to have leaders who don’t just chase power but fulfill responsibilities. Leaders who can see through the trees and bring the American people where they need to go. And the problem we face, beyond our lack of representation, is a lack of real leadership.

What is the endgame of the gerrymandering wars? How exactly are democrats or republicans going to fix the problem if they win the House in 2026?

In the system that Johnson operated in, it was much easier to represent a district of constituents because there were far fewer of them. Now there are so many that even a representative who wants to fulfill their responsibilities can’t keep up. They are overwhelmed.

We need leaders who want to uncap the house, bringing voters and representatives closer together.

Peace, Love, and Representation,

Jeff Mayhugh