THOSE WHO believe — as we do — that partisan gerrymandering has become so extreme that it violates constitutional principles and threatens our democracy were disappointed when the Supreme Court dodged the issue last term. Its refusal in June, on technical grounds, to consider two egregious cases of partisan gerrymandering seemed to dash a good chance for reform. Lawmakers in statehouses who control the process, after all, have little incentive to fix a system they have rigged to benefit themselves.
So it is heartening — exhilarating, even — that citizens fed up with the toxic effects of gerrymandering have taken matters into their own hands. The Brennan Center for Justice reports that a record number of redistricting reform measures may be on ballots in states across the country this year. A particularly inspiring example is in Michigan, where a grass-roots movement of thousands of volunteers overcame great opposition to get a constitutional amendment on the November ballot. It would put an independent commission, not the legislature and governor, in charge of drawing the state’s congressional and legislative districts. Michigan’s state Supreme Court, in a 4-to-3 decision Tuesday, rejected a lawsuit brought by a business-backed group and supported by the state’s Republican attorney general that sought to keep the measure off the ballot.
