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Tag: West Michigan Hispanic Center

Lies, Damned Lies, and Democrat Redistricting Plans

By Kevin Rex Heine, Section News
Posted on Mon Jun 06, 2011 at 08:18:49 AM EST
Tags: decennial redistricting, Voting Rights Act, Kent County Black Caucus, West Michigan Hispanic Center, Grand Rapids Press, Kent County Democrats, Kent County Republicans, gerrymandering press releases (all tags)

Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution (as modified by Amendment 14, Section 2) provides that the whole population of the country should be enumerated every ten years subsequent to the first such enumeration. And, as a result of each census, each state's representation in Congress is reapportioned (which also applies to other proportionate-representation bodies such as state legislatures and county commissions). Article 4, Section 6 of the Michigan Constitution provides for the Commission on Legislative Apportionment. P.A. 261 of 1966 is the governing authority for the statutory apportionment guidelines for county commission reapportionment. (The controlling court case for county reapportionment is 413 Mich 224 [1982].)

In Michigan, the County Apportionment Commission consists of 5 members: The County Clerk, the County Treasurer, the County Prosecutor, and the chairs of the two county party committees that received the largest share of the vote in the most recent gubernatorial election. In the case of Kent County, the Board of Commissioners is 15 R - 4 D (because the Kent GOP was able to flip four seats in 2010) and the Apportionment Commission is 4 R - 1 D. And with the dems that badly outnumbered, you just know that they're going to get . . . creative . . . in their approach to "assisting" in the redistricting process.