(Editor’s Note: This week’s column, which is normally published Wednesday, is appearing early, in case the Michigan Supreme Court makes an early ruling on whether to keep the Voters Not Politicians anti-gerrymandering effort on the ballot. Next week’s column will be published later in the day Wednesday, Aug. 8, after the primary election results are known.)
We are about to find out whether democracy still has any meaning in this state, and it’s up to the seven justices of the Michigan Supreme Court. They will rule any day now on whether to allow Michigan citizens to vote to take away corrupt politicians’ right to draw outrageously unfair election districts.
There’s no doubt how the Supremes should rule – for the people, hundreds of thousands of whom have signed petitions to put the Voters Not Politicians constitutional amendment on the Michigan ballot this November.
That amendment would take the power to draw new election districts away from the legislators, who seek to perpetuate their own party’s power and please the special interests that fund them. Instead, an independent citizens group composed of Republicans, Democrats and independents would be given the power to do it fairly.
Many citizens didn’t have to be told that they had been forced into outrageously unfair election districts; they knew it.
People were so eager to sign these petitions that Voters Not Politicians, the ad hoc, good government group that designed the amendment, didn’t have to pay people with clipboards to get signatures. Voters rushed to sign.
The Michigan Board of Canvassers certified that the amendment was eligible for the ballot. When a grossly misnamed group called “Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution” sued to try to keep it off, the Michigan Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the amendment was fine, legal and proper, and should stay on.
But those who’ve been running things – Republicans and the special interests that fund them — are desperate not to lose the power to prevent fair competition from happening.
They’ve made a last-ditch appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments July 18.
Actually, they probably shouldn’t even have heard the case, and just reaffirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals. But the problem is this. Justice should be blind – but we have a Michigan Supreme Court that is partisan by definition.
While it is theoretically possible to have an independent justice, in practice, they are nominated and put on the ballot by the two political parties, or appointed by the governor when an incumbent quits, often to take a high-paying private sector job.
Currently, there are five Republicans and two Democrats. That means, in order for the people to get a chance to decide, at least two of the Republican judges would have to vote to allow the anti-gerrymandering amendment on the ballot.
But will they? Court watchers consider Chief Justice Stephen Markman to be the ultimate partisan hack. Kurtis Wilder and Brian Zahra are little different.
Assuming Democrats Bridget Mary McCormack and Richard Bernstein vote to uphold keeping the proposal on the ballot. that means the issue is likely to be decided by the other two Republicans: David Viviano, who has shown a surprising degree of thoughtfulness and independence and the court’s newest justice, Elizabeth Clement, who until last November was Gov. Rick Snyder’s chief legal counsel.
But first, a little background:
Michigan, like every other state, draws new legislative and congressional districts every ten years, after the census results are known. Regardless of whatever system is in place, this will next happen in 2021, and be based on the results of the April 1, 2020 census. The only legal requirement is that every congressional district must have the same number of people.
Legislative ones can vary a bit, but only within five percent. Politicians have long sought to protect their own districts, and boost their party’s chances.
That wasn’t so bad when you had divided government, with Democrats and Republicans, each say, controlling one house of the legislature. But the last two times this happened, in 2001 and 2011, Republicans controlled everything.
So they drew the lines just as they liked, and made them outrageously unfair, though some of them denied this.
This is called gerrymandering, and everyone whose paid attention knows exactly what’s been going on.
We did, in fact, even before the recent discovery of a cache of emails proving that they were eager, as one said “to cram all the Dem garbage in Wayne, Washtenaw, Oakland and Macomb Counties” into as few districts as possible.
They weren’t the least bit subtle about it, either. The worst example is the Michigan State Senate, which is so outrageously drawn that four years ago, when each party’s candidates got almost the same number of total votes for Senate, the result was 27 Republicans and only 11 Democrats.
Most experts think it is now literally impossible for Democrats to ever win a state senate majority.
Two years ago, more Michigan voters chose Democrats than Republicans for Congress. The result: 9 Republicans, 5 Democrats. Any wonder the voters are outraged?
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled three years ago in an Arizona case that citizens have the right to take redistricting back from the politicians.
But in a desperate effort, the “Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution” group, a group funded by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Republican Party, and Amway, is arguing that the Voters Not Politicians amendment isn’t legal.
They claim the only way to change the system would be to have a new constitutional convention. Few if any constitutional experts agree. But politics is politics, and those in charge will do almost anything to keep power from the people.
They know that if the Voters Not Politicians effort gets on the ballot, they’re sunk. Ohio voters passed a congressional redistricting proposal this year by a three-to-one margin.
There’s no doubt Michigan voters want to be allowed to vote on this. But whether they will be allowed to do so probably rests in the hands of two Republican justices.
There was a glimmer of hope last week: Those two justices, again, Beth Clement and Richard Viviano, voted with the Democrats to decide that schools do have a right to ban guns on school property. This issue is at least as important.
For if special interests are capable of preventing people who have followed the rules from working within the system for peaceful change, it means our democracy is an utter fraud.
And that may be the scariest outcome of all.
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Brook vs. the Goliaths: Thanks to gerrymandering, most congressional as well as legislative districts are one-party fiefdoms where the winner will be decided in next week’s primary.
One of those is the heavily Democratic Ninth District, which straddles southern Macomb and southeast Oakland counties. The battle is seen as mainly one between Andy Levin, son of the retiring longtime incumbent Sander Levin, and former State Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton. Lipton, at last tally, had raised $1.09 million.
Levin, the favorite to succeed his father, was close behind with $901,080. And then there is Martin Brook, a 53-year-old lawyer and former school board president.
Brook has a wife and a couple kids, one in high school, one in college. He has to work, so he goes off to the office every day, campaigns at night and the weekends, rejects corporate money, and relies on “friendraisers” for what funding he gets. He’s managed to scrape together $34,649. Nobody thinks he any chance to win.
But wouldn’t it send a huge message if he did?
