{"id":381339,"date":"2018-10-17T12:33:29","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T11:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/citizen-and-legislative-efforts-to-reform-redistricting-in-2018\/"},"modified":"2018-10-17T12:33:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T11:33:29","slug":"citizen-and-legislative-efforts-to-reform-redistricting-in-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/citizen-and-legislative-efforts-to-reform-redistricting-in-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Citizen and Legislative Efforts to Reform Redistricting in 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Grassroots and advocacy groups around the country are working to curb gerrymandering \u2013 the manipulation of voting districts to favor or disfavor one group of voters over another or to protect incumbents. Similar grassroots efforts in recent years led to the successful implementation of independent commissions in Arizona and California.<\/p>\n

24 states have a ballot initiative process that allows citizens to propose a law or constitutional amendment, either to the legislature or directly to voters. Other states only allow the legislature to amend the constitution or pass laws, meaning, in these states, that citizens must persuade their legislature to pass reforms.<\/p>\n

A round-up of the latest news on key citizen-driven and legislative efforts to reform the redistricting process.<\/p>\n

Ballot Initiatives<\/h2>\n

Michigan<\/strong><\/p>\n

A ballot initiative that would create an independent citizens\u2019 redistricting commission to draw the state\u2019s political boundaries, proposed by <\/span>Voters Not Politicians<\/a> <\/span>(VNP), will go before voters on the November 2018 ballot. Voters Not Politicians founder Katie Fahey <\/span>hopes<\/a> <\/span>a nonpartisan commission will remove politics from the redistricting process, and create a system that \u201crepresents voters instead of politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group <\/span>submitted<\/a> <\/span>nearly 450,000 signatures to the Michigan Board of State Canvassers in December 2017, overwhelmingly surpassing the amount necessary to place a question before Michigan voters on the ballot in 2018 (315,654<\/a>). <\/p>\n

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At the beginning of June, a three-judge panel at the Michigan Court of Appeals <\/span>ordered<\/a> <\/span>for VNP\u2019s measure to be placed on the November ballot, <\/span>unanimously<\/a> <\/span>rejecting a <\/span>challenge<\/a> <\/span>that contended the initiative is too expansive for a constitutional amendment and does not list all to the sections that would be abrogated. The challengers <\/span>appealed<\/a> <\/span>the decision to the Michigan Supreme Court. Learn more about the lawsuit <\/span>here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On June 20, the Board of State…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grassroots and advocacy groups around the country are working to curb gerrymandering \u2013 the manipulation of voting districts to favor or disfavor one group of voters over another or to protect incumbents. Similar grassroots efforts in recent years led to the successful implementation of independent commissions in Arizona and California. 24 states have a ballot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-381339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}