Darrell Clem

hometownlife.com

Pushing back against the "unfair" way electoral districts are drawn in Michigan, a grassroots group is gaining support for its emerging campaign to remove politicians from the redistricting process.

Calling itself Voters not Politicians, the non-partisan group brought its message to a crowd of 200 people Wednesday night at St. John's Episcopal Church in Plymouth. Canton resident Phyllis Hampton is among the voters who say they are fed up with political parties serving their own interests, rather than their constituents.

Hampton said the sprawling 11th congressional district, whose U.S. House seat is held by Republican Dave Trott, is a prime example of gerrymandering, or drawing a district to benefit one political party.

"This is one of the most egregiously gerrymandered districts in Michigan and I would like to see that changed," Hampton said. "Other states have found ways to solve this problem and I think there are many examples Michigan can look at to fix the problem here."

Northville resident Susan Greenlee said voting districts, redrawn every 10 years to coincide with the U.S. Census, should be drawn in a non-partisan way. She said districts currently are sometimes gerrymandered along income and racial lines to marginalize voters and benefit those in power.

"It's unfair," she said.

Voters not Politicians, which evolved from the Count MI Vote group, has launched a series of town hall meetings across Michigan amid hopes this spring of circulating petitions for a November 2018 ballot measure to change the state constitution. If approved by voters, supporters say it would remove politics from the redistricting process.

The group would need to collect 315,654 signatures of registered voters within a 180-day window. The move seeks to place the responsibility for drawing districts in the hands of an independent committee, possibly one composed of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans and some independent representatives.

Amelia Quilon, marketing director for Voters not Politicians, said the ballot initiative is non-partisan because either party, depending on which is in power, can be guilty of gerrymandering.

"We are not bashing either party," she said. "We have seen both parties do this rather badly."

Kevin Deegan-Krause, a Wayne State University political science associate professor volunteering with Voters not Politicians, led much of Tuesday's town hall forum and said the current system of drawing legislative and congressional districts focuses on the wrong priorities.

"What happens is politicians are choosing their voters instead of the other way around," he said, adding that "voters should choose their politicians."

Often, he said, gerrymandering serves to make it harder for minorities such as African Americans to have their fair share of representation in their districts. Moreover, he said political influence on drawing voting districts can now, because of technology and access to voter data, be more easily accomplished.

"We can now do it with surgical precision," Deegan-Krause said, adding that terms such as "hijacking" a district are used.

Voters not Politicians say both political parties are guilty of trying to preserve their power by gerrymandering.

"This is a game that's played by both sides of those who are in power," Deegan-Krause said.

He said Michigan is a state that is typically close to evenly divided in the number of voters who are Democrat or Republican. Yet, he said Michigan Republicans have a 9-5 advantage in those elected to the U.S. House, partly because of the way voting districts are drawn.

By comparison, he said the state of Maryland is gerrymandered to benefit Democrats.

Meanwhile, Voters not Politicians is now soliciting opinions from voters before it tries to hone in on potential ballot language for the 2018 election. It also is starting to raise money and expects it may need as much as $10 million to wage a campaign that, even then, will likely be outspent by its opponents, Quilon said.

The group admits it's a giant task to collect the signatures it needs to get a ballot proposal and then get it approved, but members believe enough voters want the change.

"It's going to be a big task," Deegan-Krause said, "but it's not going to be an insurmountable task."

For more, go to http://www.votersnotpoliticians.com

dclem@hometownlife.com

Twitter: @CantonObserver

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