LANSING — Feb. 2, 2023 — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer celebrated the first major triumphs of her second term by posing happily with labor leaders as she signed legislation repealing right-to-work laws in Michigan and protecting teachers’ unions and safeguarding their bargaining rights.
That happened, Democrats acknowledged, only because the new district lines drawn in 2021 by the new redistricting commission ended gerrymandering in the state. Democrats then won majorities in both houses of the legislature for the first time since 1982, enabling them to begin to enact their agenda.
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Fiction? For now, yes. But that scenario is not all that hard to imagine. A year ago, Republicans controlled every branch of state government.They held every statewide elected post, except for some education board members. They controlled both houses of the legislature, and had a 5-2 majority on the Michigan Supreme Court.
But the tide swung heavily against them last year. Democrats won all the major statewide jobs – governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general. They gained a seat on the highest state court, to reduce the partisan difference to 4 to 3.
And those numbers don’t tell the full story. Two GOP justices suddenly began showing an independent streak, breaking with ideology to allow the anti-gerrymandering amendment on last year’s ballot and electing Democrat Bridget McCormick chief justice.
Republicans did still keep majorities in both houses of the legislature, thought they lost five seats in each. But again, the news for the GOP is far worse than those numbers show.
They kept control only because of blatant gerrymandering. Democratic legislative candidates got considerably more total popular votes than Republicans in races for both houses.
But four years from now, things will be completely different. Voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that takes redistricting powers away from the legislature and gives it to a commission of Democrats, Republicans and independents, who will draw the districts without interference by elected officials.
If they come up with districts based only on equal size and commonality of interests, either party should be able to win many of them. More competitive districts may well mean pushing both parties back towards the “sensible center,” and candidates less driven by ideology and more receptive to public opinion and needs.
That theoretically would be much better for Democrats, in that it should make it much easier for them to win control of each house. Though Michigan did stun experts by giving President Donald Trump a razor-thin plurality in 2016, it has been trending Democratic.
When U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow won a fourth term last November, it meant Democrats had won 14 of the last 15 Senate races in the state, as well as six out of seven presidential elections.
Whether those numbers –- and the knowledge that redistricting under new rules is approaching — will make Republicans more open to bipartisanship remains to be seen. There were certainly no signs of that during the “lame duck” session, in which spiteful GOP legislators passed a law seeking to limit the attorney general’s powers.
Outgoing Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed it, while a similar attempt to trim the Secretary of State’s powers never made it to a vote.
For her part, new Governor Whitmer, a former state senate minority leader, held out a clear olive branch out to the Republican legislative leaders she will have to work with.
“We live in divisive times, but Michigan’s problems are not partisan,” she said in her inaugural address.
“I am committed to working across party lines to make sure all Michiganders have opportunity,” she said, after choosing a GOP Supreme Court justice to swear her in.
What’s not clear is how receptive Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, (R-Jackson) and Speaker of the House Lee Chatfield (R-Levering) will be to any of this, or who voters will blame if, once again, the roads aren’t fixed and other problems not solved.
Governor Whitmer, however, may be in a somewhat stronger position. She was elected by a near-landslide over former Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, who was thought to be a formidable opponent. Unlike the last two governors, she has considerable legislative experience. Michigan also tends to reelect its chief executives: No governor has been denied a second term since 1962.
Neither Shirkey nor Chatfield has been seen as especially bipartisan, but indications are clear that the voters are exasperated with the hyperpartisan nastiness of the past.
They want cooperation, and if Republicans refuse to help find solutions to tackle pressing problems – starting with the roads — it may greatly increase the chances that something like the scenario at the top of this column may become reality.
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Redistricting, this year? Michigan gerrymandering has been so blatant that despite the success of Voters Not Politicians, a the League of Women Voters and a group of Democrats have filed a federal lawsuit to require immediate redistricting, now.
The case was scheduled to go to trial this month, but Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, has offered to settle the case if Republican legislators agreed to draw new boundaries for 11 of the most gerrymandered house districts in time for the 2020 election.
Most observers think the case is extremely strong, especially since a series of “smoking gun” emails from 2011 clearly indicate Republican intentions to gerrymander.
So why is Secretary Benson willing to settle for so little?
Simple. The new Voters Not Politicians Amendment will require the complete end of gerrymandering in 2022. Benson, who is believed to be focused on her own ambitious future, likely decided that using up her energy and political capital to fight for a settlement that would be obsolete in a year made little sense.
