KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM) — Redistricting in Michigan is just a few years away. It’s the constitutional requirement that legislative districts be redrawn every ten years to match population shifts measured by the U.S. Census.
Rep. Jon Hoadley, D-Kalamazoo, said it’s also usually taken advantage of by the party in power to redraw the boundaries in secret to give their candidates an unfair advantage. He said “democracy” means that voters pick the officials, the officials are not supposed to pick the voters.
He is co-sponsoring bills with Rep. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, that were first proposed by his predecessor, Sean McCann, and would create a panel of 14 citizens that would be screened and picked at random to be balanced. It would include five Democrats, five Republicans and four independents.
They would be given the staff and expert help to get the job done. It would take agreement from nine of them, three from each group, to approve the maps.
The odds it will pass seem long with Republicans in control of both houses, and the constitutional amendment needing a supermajority in both chambers to pass.
