About Ungerrymander America

About Zane

I started thinking about politics seriously during the 2008 election. As a teenager not yet old enough to vote, I was so inspired by Barack Obama and his platform of hope and change. But my hope faded to cynicism as Obama's presidency became consumed by the dysfunction of America's two-party system.

At the University of Washington, I discovered I loved thinking about and debating the big questions about our lives and society. I studied philosophy, political science, and public administration, with a focus on climate change. After UW, I found work researching and writing about democracy reform and the energy transition, and my work has been published at the Sightline Institute and the Ohio River Valley Institute.

I live in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest is my home. Outside of politics, I love to travel and watch movies, and sometimes I write about those things, too. Drop a line if you want to get in touch at politicalzane@gmail.com.

Why Ungerrymander America?

Gerrymandering is the manipulation of political district boundaries to entrench power. It is an obviously rigged system that benefits whichever party is in power. Ungerrymandering America requires taking on the establishments in both political parties.

This project began in February 2023 when I started writing Polemic for Democracy and literally redrew the map to show what an ungerrymandered America could look like. Since I published Polemic in October 2024, the project has grown across mediums and expanded to include other systemic issues like political discourse, economic inequality, and technology in our society.

I believe the way to address the myriad problems of our society is through functional and representative government. The goal of Ungerrymander America is to create a multiparty political system in America, one that is responsive to the demands of its citizens and will, in the words of the Constitution, "promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity".