My Take: Why we need fair redistricting
For 20 years (2003-22) Republican gerrymandering has made it impossible for Democrats to win control of the Michigan Legislature and difficult, impossible since 2010, to send a Democratic majority representation to the U.S. House, even when winning a majority of all votes.
Bob Genetski, a former Republican state representative (2009-14) cried foul and attacked the independent redistricting commission for failing to create Allegan County as a community of interest, calling the committee “bums." The committee did, however, put the coast of Allegan into a lakeshore community of interest.
More: My Take: How do we throw these bums out?
Minorities in Detroit are crying foul with a lawsuit because Detroit voters are placed with suburban communities. Fair? Though Blacks in these districts are a minority compared to whites, Blacks are a wide majority of Democrats in these districts.
Why these two complaints?
For decades Michigan has been a “purple” state. But we lean Democratic. Proof: Though our governorship flips, there have been Democratic governors 12 of these 20 years. In the past six presidential elections, Michigan has voted five times for the Democratic candidate, Trump being the exception. For 20 years, we have elected Democratic U.S. senators. On statewide votes, Democrats usually win.
Controlling the redistricting process after the 2000 and 2010 censuses, and having a database on most voters, the Republicans’ computer spit out districts that guaranteed their dominance in our legislature and representation in the U.S. House. Currently, this gives the GOP a whopping 14 percent point advantage.
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For 20 years, Republicans have controlled the state Senate by a wide margin, and for 16 years the House. Since the 2010 redistricting, Republicans have owned both, checked only by an occasional governor's veto. Republican legislatures have occasionally bypassed these vetoes by securing about 450,000 signatures on an initiative petition drive.
The U.S. House has favored Republicans 14 years, the Democrats only four — zero since 2010. The past four years there has been a tie.
Fair? Democrats did not respond to this injustice of gerrymandering by taking to the streets, intimidating vote counters and elected officials, pushing for laws to disenfranchise Republicans, or provoking a violent march on our state capitol.
Instead, Democrats worked through the process of placing a constitutional amendment on the ballot, that passed by a wide margin and established the current bipartisan redistricting commission. The most important commission guideline is to create competitive party districts. The commission has produced several maps that did better on communities of interest and majority-minority districts. These maps, however, also maintained the Republican advantage. The commission has produced a map that gives neither party an advantage, creating “toss-up” districts as much as possible. To accomplish this, the map looks like it is super-gerrymandered with odd-shaped districts, but it's not. The map is an attempt at restoring fairness.
Republicans nationwide objecting to fairness and fearing the loss of their minority control have taken to passing voting laws. Some appear neutral by their words, but when implemented, they will make voting more difficult for minorities and the poor, who typically vote Democratic.
Trump has even called for his supporters to be the vote counters and election certifiers, replacing those Republicans who certified Biden’s win with those apparently willing to lie. Trump recently echoed the sentiments of Stalin and other authoritarians who did not care who voted in elections; as long as his comrades counted the votes, Stalin never lost an election.
Michigan Republicans, to maintain their legislative advantage, have passed laws that negatively impact Democratic voters. Gov. Whitmer has vetoed them. Republicans are now circulating a petition to get these laws passed through an initiative, which, when signed by a sufficient number, will enable the current unrepresentative Michigan Legislature to pass these disenfranchising laws over the governor’s veto.
A racist anti-democratic faction, under the spell of an authoritarian cult-like Trump, has gained control over the Republican Party, including Michigan’s, and is attempting nationwide to disenfranchise Democratic voters. If this faction is successful, it will be impossible for majority Democrats to gain control of the federal government just as it has been impossible for Democrats to control the Michigan Legislature for 20 years.
This is what fascists do. They twist the system to gain power. Once they are in control, they make it impossible — short of violence that can destroy a nation — to throw the fascist authoritarians out.
— Don Bergman is a resident of Park Township.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: My Take: Why we need fair redistricting
