6 November 2018 | |||||||||||||||||||
A proposed constitutional amendment to establish a commission of citizens with exclusive authority to adopt district boundaries for the Michigan Senate, Michigan House of Representatives and U.S. Congress, every 10 years. | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Source:MLive,[1]NYTimes[2] | |||||||||||||||||||
Michigan Proposal 18-2 was a ballot initiative approved by voters inMichigan as part of the2018 United States elections. The proposal was created in preparation of the2020 United States census, to move control ofredistricting from thestate legislature to an independent commission. The commission consists of thirteen members selected randomly by the secretary of state: four affiliated withDemocrats, four affiliated withRepublicans, and fiveindependents. Any Michigan voter can apply to be a commissioner, as long as they have not been, in the last six years, a politician or lobbyist. Proponents argued that Michigan's current districts aregerrymandered, giving an unfair advantage to the Republican Party. Opponents argued that the process would give the secretary of state too much power over redistricting, and that the people on the commission would be unlikely to understand principles of redistricting.[3] The proposal was approved with 61.28% of the vote.[2]
Following the2010 midterms in Michigan, Republicans controlled the Michigan state government, and therefore controlled redistricting. The districts they created were gerrymandered to give a partisan advantage to Republicans. In the2012 Michigan House of Representatives election, Democrats won 53.97% of the vote, compared to 46.03% for Republicans. Despite this, Republicans won 59 seats, to Democrats' 51.[5] A similar result occurred in 2016, with a nearly even vote (49.2%–49.13%) leading to a 16-seat advantage for Republicans.[4] In 2019, the districts for the Michigan House, Michigan Senate, and United States House of Representatives were ruled as unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering.[6]
Proposal 18-2 was a citizen-led ballot initiative, supported by the501(c)(4) organization Voters Not Politicians, founded byKatie Fahey. Voters Not Politicians organized the collection of more than 425,000 signatures from registered Michigan voters to allow the proposal to appear on the ballot.[7]
The proposal appeared on the ballot as follows:[3]
A proposed constitutional amendment to establish a commission of citizens with exclusive authority to adopt district boundaries for the Michigan Senate, Michigan House of Representatives and U.S. Congress, every 10 years.
This proposed constitutional amendment would:
- Create a commission of 13 registered voters randomly selected by the secretary of state:
- 4 each who self-identify as affiliated with the 2 major political parties; and
- 5 who self-identify as unaffiliated with major political parties.
- Prohibit partisan officeholders and candidates, their employees, certain relatives, and lobbyists from serving as commissioners.
- Establish new redistricting criteria including geographically compact and contiguous districts of equal population, reflecting Michigan's diverse population and communities of interest. Districts shall not provide disproportionate advantage to political parties or candidates.
- Require an appropriation of funds for commission operations and commissioner compensation.
| Choice | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|
 Yes | 2,516,998 | 61.28 |
| No | 1,590,638 | 38.72 |
| Total votes | 4,107,636 | 100.00 |
The proposal was passed easily, requiring a simple majority.Washtenaw,Ingham, andMarquette counties had the highest percentage of yes vote, whileMissaukee,Montmorency,Sanilac, andOsceola counties had the highest percentage of no vote.[1] The proposal passed in 67 of Michigan's 83 counties with strong support across the state.
250,000 applications to serve on the commission were randomly mailed out by the Michigan secretary of state on December 30, 2019. More than 6,200 Michiganders applied to be part of the redistricting commission before the June 1, 2020, deadline. 200 semi-finalists were selected at random by the accounting firm Rehmann LLC by the end of June.[8] The commission finished drawing maps for theState House,State Senate, andUS House in December 2021.[9]
On March 23, 2022, a group of nineteen African-American Detroiters who live in thirteen different Michigan House and Senate districts in portions of Detroit sued the MICRC for violating the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.[10] On December 21, 2023, a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan determined inAgee v. Benson that the MICRC "overwhelmingly - indeed, inescapably" drew the boundaries of the plaintiffs' districts predominantly on the basis for race.[11] The three-judge panel enjoined further use of the Michigan House and Michigan Senate maps drawn by the MICRC and ordered the maps to be redrawn.[12]
The commission's new maps went into effect for the 2022 elections. The redrawn maps were seen as instrumental forDemocratic victories in theState House andState Senate, taking control of the latter for the first time since 1984.[13][14]
