Legislation by ambush

I spent the middle of my day today in training for being a presenter for the Voters Not Politicians campaign to end gerrymandering in Michigan. I was a presenter while signatures were gathered last fall. Now we’re gearing up for the election so the emphasis is a bit different, some slides in the presentation improved, others discarded. I need to come up with a brief non-partisan introduction of myself, saying why I volunteered. So, the presenter team is ready to go. If you’re in Michigan, please invite us to one of your events or meetings.

In other gerrymandering news…

I’ve written about the case in Pennsylvania where the state Supreme Court declared the maps to be unconstitutional. Since the GOP refused to redraw the maps the Court hired a consultant to do it. These maps will be used for the elections in 2018 and 2020.

But the GOP isn’t done in PA.

A bill had been introduced to amend the state constitution to create an independent redistricting commission, similar to what we are working towards in Michigan. There was a bipartisan majority in the state House that supported it, but (as we would expect) the GOP leadership blocked it from getting a vote.

The next move was legislation by ambush. That bill was pulled apart and replaced with one that allows the majority party to name a majority of the commission’s members. In addition, the governor would not be allowed to veto the maps (the current governor is Dem). It was voted on without debate. This punctured the reform effort.

To actually become part of the constitution this bill will have to be approved by the legislature again after the 2018 election, then go before voters.

On to North Carolina. The US Supreme Court affirmed a lower court ruling saying that 28 of the state’s 170 legislative districts had violated the Constitution by diminishing the power of black votes. This is one problem with hoping for the courts to fix bad maps – these were maps drawn in 2011 and the maps are only being redrawn now.

And another problem with the court solution is that the GOP got to redraw the maps. And while they fixed the racial problems they used the chance (otherwise not available until after 2020) to strengthen the GOP advantage in other districts. The Democrats filed a challenge. The state court judges said we agree with you, but the next election is already underway.