We hear a lot about the wall that President Trump wants to build along the border between Mexico and the United States. Another major issue that regularly comes up is drawing up the border boundaries for congressional districts. Voters in five state will be voting on various ballot measures related to how the congressional district boundaries are drawn.

Traditionally a state’s congressional district boundaries were drawn by the state legislature. This would typically happen every ten yeas after the latest census was complete. But the way things are these days in politics, whenever states would have to redraw the boundaries there would be such sharp disagreements that the dispute would end up in court.

Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Utah are the states that will be voting on this issue in November. The latest trend seems to be to establish “independent” commissions, made up of members from both political parties, to redraw the boundaries. Until they come up with a better way to draw up the boundaries, maybe independent commissions are the way to go.