Saturday, December 6, 2008

New Congressional District 600 Miles Long, 60 Feet Wide

A newly drawn California Congressional district is 600 miles long and 60 feet wide, according to Democratic National Committee spokesperson Heidi Farranger, who addressed a hastily assembled Washington, D.C. news conference.

“The district snakes 600 miles from the San Diego border to just south of Fresno,” Farranger said. “It picks out every Democratic-leaning household and skips over Republican-leaning households, so we can be pretty sure the new Congressperson from this new district will be Democratic.”

The newly drawn Congressional district, the longest in the United States, was created with special mapping tools that analyzed election data going back 20 years, Farranger said.

“The Republicans have done the same thing for years,” she argued, “so it’s only fair that we get to draw up safe seats for our own candidates. And there’s something kind of artistic about the district, the way it loops and swirls, avoiding almost all of Orange County on its way to finding more Democratic homes in the Inland Empire.”

Reporters pointed out that because so many Congressional districts were drawn up to create safe seats for Congresspeople, there was less turnover in the U.S. Congress than there had been in the Soviet Kremlin.

“Well, if people don’t like it,” Farranger said, “they can always write their Congressperson. Assuming they can figure out who exactly their Congressperson is. Ha, ha, ha.”

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