Michigan Capitol (DepositPhotos)
Michigan Democrats who have complained about Republican gerrymandering over the years scored a major victory Thursday.
A three-judge federal panel ruled that Michigan must redraw legislative and congressional districts for the 2020 elections because Republican lawmakers unconstitutionally gerrymandered current maps, Jonathan Oosting of The Detroit News reports.
The ruling requires Michigan to conduct special elections for certain State Senate seats next year, cutting in half the four-year terms that current lawmakers serve.
The “predominate purpose” of the redistricting plan approved by the GOP-led Legislature in 2011 “was to subordinate the interests of Democratic voters and entrench Republicans in power,” said the unanimous decision written by U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Eric Clay, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton. The two other judges on the panel are U.S. District Judges Denise Page Hood and Gordon Quist.
“Therefore, the enacted plan constitutes a durable partisan gerrymander," says the opinion, which adds:
Today, this Court joins the growing chorus of federal courts that have, in recent years, held that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. We find that the Enacted Plan violates Plaintiffs’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights because it deliberately dilutes the power of their votes by placing them in districts that were intentionally drawn to ensure a particular partisan outcome in each district.
