KALAMAZOO (WKZO AM/FM) — A new study analyzed by the Associated Press claims that Republicans won 22 seats in Congress more than they should because of gerrymandering.
They say Michigan is one of the states where it’s had the greatest influence.
The AP reviewed 435 U.S. House races and 4700 state legislative races nationally from last year using a mathematical formula designed to reveal partisan advantage.
They determined that while democrats and republicans split 50-50 at the voting booths in Michigan, republicans won 63 house seats and democrats only got 47 because of the way districts were drawn.
The Princeton University Gerrymandering Project calculated for AP, that the probability that the Republican advantage in Michigan’s 110 State House Districts would occur by chance was 1 in 16,000.
WMU Political Science Professor Peter Weilhouwer says it played a role in some of the recent runoff elections, helping republicans stave off democratic challengers. “There are some states where Republicans have clearly done extraordinary gerrymandering, we have cases here in Michigan, we certainly have cases in North Carolina and Texas, Democrats are not innocent, they also have dirty hands in places like Maryland.”
But the AP claims their formula found Republicans had an advantage in four times as many state house races as Democrats. They had a 3 to 1 advantage in the big states that determine the makeup of Congress.
Kalamazoo State Rep. Jon Hoadley introduced a State Constitutional Amendment to improve Michigan’s redistricting process by creating a nonpartisan commission that would be responsible for the drawing of political boundaries.
The legislation was proposed in January following a study published by the Electoral Integrity Project (EIP) which found that North Carolina, the state that they claim is the most highly partisan districted state in the nation was no longer considered a democracy due to the drawing of its districts. “When it comes to voting, people, not politicians should be in the driver’s seat,”
Rep. Hoadley went on to say “In Michigan, the current rules let politicians draw legislative maps to choose the voters they want. Voters should be the ones doing the choosing.”
Since then the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case out of Wisconsin in which a regional court ruled that the partisan drawing of election districts is unconstitutional. It could greatly change how district boundaries are set in the future.
