• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Redistricting>
  3. gerrymandering>

Michigan​ redistricting commission gets appeals court's green light

Sara Swann
https://twitter.com/saramswann?lang=en
April 16, 2020
Michigan district map

Michigan's 14th congressional district was designed to pack Democratic voters from Pontiac and Detroit into one convoluted district.

mapchart.net

In a huge win for the opponents of partisan gerrymandering, a federal appeals court has quashed a well-funded legal challenge from the right to Michigan's new independent redistricting commission.

The requirements for sitting on the panel, designed to limit the number of even potentially partisan players, were upheld as constitutional Wednesday by a unanimous 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Republicans maintain the criteria violate free speech and equal protection rights of would-be public servants.

Unless the Supreme Court decides to step in, which for the moment looks unlikely, the panel will be created in time to draw new congressional and legislative seats after the 2020 census. Michigan will be the second-biggest, after California, of the 13 states where at least some mapmaking will be done by such a nonpartisan commission.


Michigan has been at the heart of the partisan gerrymandering battle for the past decade, because it has been a case study of what critics describe as politicians picking their voters when it should be the other way around: A battleground state where the maps drawn by a Republican Legislature kept that party in control of the state capital and the congressional delegation even after a series of elections in which Democrats won almost as many overall votes or even more.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Two years ago, 61 percent of voters approved a ballot measure to establish a commission to take over the line-drawing: four Republicans, four Democrats and five independents.

But the state GOP and other party activists challenged the eligibility criteria included in the referendum, which bars membership by current and former partisan elected officials, party bosses, candidates and lobbyists — or any members of their families. That violates both the First and 14th amendment rights of thousands of would-be commissioners, the Republicans said in a lawsuit spurned by a federal trial judge last November.

"The eligibility criteria do not represent some out-of-place addition to an unrelated state program; they are part and parcel of the definition of this commission, of how it achieves independence from partisan meddling," Judge Karen Nelson Moore wrote in an opinion, joined by Judge Ronald Lee Gilman. Both were nominated by President Bill Clinton.

Judge Chad Readler, a nominee of President Trump, concurred in the result and wrote: "It is refreshing to see the court embrace as a central principle a state's prerogative in organizing its government, including its election system."

Voters Not Politicians, the group created to push the ballot measure, said it will continue to encourage applications for seats on the commission. More than 4,300 have applied already. The deadline is June 1, after which the panelists are to be chosen at random by the secretary of state's office.

"Taking partisanship out of drawing electoral maps is critical to advancing the principle of accountability in government," said Paul Smith of the Campaign Legal Center, which represented that grassroots group in the lawsuit. "Michigan voters want fair maps. They will not be silenced by special interests, who continue to try and exert their will over the redistricting process."

Spokeswoman Tony Zammit said the Michigan GOP has not decided whether to appeal.

From Your Site Articles
  • Judge allows Michigan redistricting commission to proceed - The ... ›
  • Democracy groups rally to defend independent redistricting in ... ›
  • How to Slay a Dragon: Reflections on a documentary - The Fulcrum ›
  • Michigan GOP fails again to stop new redistricting panel - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Michigan Gerrymandering Case - The Atlantic ›
  • Gerrymandering: Michigan's independent redistricting commission is ... ›
  • Appeals court refuses to block Michigan redistricting panel ›
gerrymandering

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

Milind Thakar
22h

Poll: Americans’ legislative wish list for new congress shows frustration with political systems

Benjamin Clary
22h

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Our Staff
22h

Your Take: Religious beliefs

Our Staff
03 February

Remembering the four chaplains eighty years later

Rabbi Charles Savenor
03 February

Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Our Staff
03 February
Videos

Video: What does it mean to be Black?

Our Staff

Video: The dignity index

Our Staff

Video: The Supreme Court and originalism

Our Staff

Video: How the baby boom changed American politics

Our Staff

Video: What the speakership election tells us about the 118th Congress webinar

Our Staff

Video: We need more bipartisan commitment to democracy: Pennsylvania governor

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Our Staff
22h

Podcast: Anti-racism: The pro-human approach

Our Staff
03 February

Podcast: 2024 Senate: Democrats have a lot of defending to do

Our Staff
02 February

Podcast: Collage: The promise of Black History Month

Our Staff
01 February
Recommended
Video: What does it mean to be Black?

Video: What does it mean to be Black?

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

It’s the institutional design, stupid! With a parliamentary system, America could avoid gridlock and instability

Government
Poll: Americans’ legislative wish list for new congress shows frustration with political systems

Poll: Americans’ legislative wish list for new congress shows frustration with political systems

Government
Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Podcast: Why Democrats fail with rural voters

Podcasts
Your Take: Religious beliefs

Your Take: Religious beliefs

Your Take
Remembering the four chaplains eighty years later

Remembering the four chaplains eighty years later

Civic Ed