GOP emails: Let's 'cram Dem garbage' into southeast Michigan districts
Source: Detroit News
Lansing Republican aides suggested ways to contain Dem garbage to four congressional districts in southeast Michigan and joked about how one district could be shaped to give the finger to a Democratic congressman, according to 2011 emails revealed in a federal lawsuit alleging GOP gerrymandering.
The emails show Republicans packed and cracked legislative and congressional district maps to benefit GOP candidates and hurt Democrats, attorneys representing the League of Women Voters argued in a recent court filing.
In a May 2011 email, Jack Daly, chief of staff for then-U.S. Rep Thaddeus McCotter, told Michigan Chamber of Commerce legal counsel Bob LaBrant and consultant Jeff Timmer that lines should be redrawn to swap some voters in Wayne County with others in West Bloomfield to ensure Democrats are in a dem district and reps in a gop district and increase the black population in black districts. . . .
Read more: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2018/07/26/gop-emails-dem-garbage-gerrymander-lawsuit/838694002/
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)SoCalNative
(4,613 posts)I'm guessing they're being scrubbed and shredded after this.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)captured some,hope fully.
markses66
(94 posts)Initech
(100,108 posts)jmowreader
(50,567 posts)But if the Democrats take the majority in 2020 in these gerrymandered states, it is our absolute responsibility to gerrymander so hard we wind up with about 400 seats in the House at the 2022 election.
Merlot
(9,696 posts)repubs are a minority and only win by gerrymandering, dems win on ideas.
Initech
(100,108 posts)appalachiablue
(41,182 posts)MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)DeminPennswoods
(15,290 posts)Our constitution specifically calls for districts to be compact and not to split municipalities. That's the basis on which the state supreme court threw out the federal congressional districts.
If Michigan has similar language in its constitution, the state supreme court could also toss the districts and order a new map to be drawn. The federal courts will not intervene because the issue will have been settled based on the state constitution and not the VRA.