On Thursday, a federal district court struck down 34 of Michigan's congressional and state legislative districts, ruling that Republican gerrymandering had violated the First and 14th Amendment rights of Democratic voters.
The court ordered that the invalidated districts must be redrawn by Aug. 1, which should leave enough time for any appeals to be resolved quickly enough so that new maps could be implemented for the 2020 elections. Notably, the court also ordered special elections for the affected districts in the state Senate, since the chamber otherwise isn't up for election until 2022, after the next regular round of redistricting.
Michigan is a top contender for the most insidious Republican gerrymandering of any state in the country. Republicans have won legislative majorities despite losing the popular vote in six of the last nine elections since the 2000 census—a stretch of time during which they’ve had exclusive control of redistricting. While Democrats elected Gretchen Whitmer as governor, swept every statewide office, and broke through the GOP’s congressional gerrymander by flipping two seats in 2018, Republicans nevertheless held on to narrow majorities in both legislative chambers.
Michigan voters also approved a ballot initiative to end gerrymandering last year by creating an independent redistricting commission, but that commission won't redraw the lines until 2022. Republican gerrymandering helped thwart Democrats from winning full control of state government in 2018 for the first time since the early 1980s, but if this ruling survives, Democrats would have a strong chance of winning power in 2020.
However, there's a strong chance that this ruling will be overturned thanks to the partisan Republican majority on the Supreme Court. The high court will soon rule in two key cases over gerrymandering in Maryland and North Carolina, and it has never before ruled in favor of plaintiffs seeking to overturn maps on the basis of unfair partisan advantage. Whether or not this Michigan ruling survives will hinge on the outcome of those two cases, which are expected to see rulings issued in June.
