Residents sound off on Michigan s sometimes mind-boggling voting districts
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Between its Lansing union hall and the Delta Township GM plant where members work a few miles away, UAW Local 602 finds itself divided between two congressional districts.
The division between the 7th and 8th Congressional Districts is mindboggling at times and could stand to change in the next congressional district map, said Mike Huerta, president of UAW 602, who buys groceries in the 4th Congressional District. Sometimes when I want to speak on any of these issues to an elected official, as you can imagine, it can be quite confusing, Huerta told the Michigan Independent Redistricting Commission on Thursday.
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More than 100 groups, including the Michigan American Civil Liberties Union, are urging U.S. Sen. Gary Peters to set a date for a hearing on D.C. statehood.
In a letter led by the advocacy group 51 for 51, they note that the legislation in the Senate has more co-sponsors than ever at 44, including Peters. A companion bill passed the U.S. House last month along party lines, and the White House has said it supports the legislation.
But to be considered in the Senate, the measure must first pass through the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, which Peters chairs.
GOP slams redistricting panel s hire of consultant who gave cash to Benson
Republicans are criticizing the Michigan Independent Redistricting Commission s Thursday hiring of a voting rights consultant who made past campaign contributions to Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
The commission voted Thursday to extend a contract to lawyer Bruce Adelson and Federal Compliance Consulting, LLC, for legal counsel related to the commission s compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act.
A longtime election and redistricting expert, Adelson donated $125 to Benson in the 2018 election cycle. But he told commissioners Thursday that he does not perform any partisan or political work. I’ve known her for several years, Adelson said of Benson. I’d gotten an email that she was running. … I contributed to her because I know her and we talked about voting rights” when she was a professor at Wayne State University.
EDITOR:
Our governors are legitimately elected representatives. In times of emergency, it’s essential that the governor has the authority to deal with the emergency. A deadly pandemic is an emergency, an ever-changing war against a virus. If a governor gets it wrong, that governor can be voted out of office. Past legislatures have figured this out. The current legislature has not.
The likely reason our current legislature can’t carry out the will of the majority is that we haven’t had a legitimately elected legislature since 2002, the year gerrymandering, not general elections, determined the outcome of district elections. Nearly all Michigan districts are very effectively gerrymandered, where the will of the hyper-partisans, who in vote in primaries of the party favored by gerrymandering, determine who occupies the district legislative seat, not voters in general elections.