marshall field

Ann Elizabeth Smith, 87, a community volunteer and Republican Party activist, died of a stroke Saturday at Gilchrist Hospice Care.

Few are satisfied with the present state of American politics: a polarized House of Representatives, and state legislatures, a presidential race in which vast sums from unidentified sources are being spent, candidates distinguished by inexperience and extreme views, and a politicized judiciary. Some blame this state of affairs on the Citizens United decision and on Republican gerrymandering of legislatures, but the situation is largely the work of "reformers."