I was excited to see the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal shine some light on the blatant Democrat attempt to use the initiatives process in Michigan to target conservative judges in the state and change Michigan’s redistricting process.
Behind the scenes the Michigan Democrat party has been plotting to oust conservative justices and skew the upcoming redistricting process in their favor. I am glad that the Wall Street Journal is pointing out this abuse in Michigan!
Wall Street Journal
Review and Outlook
Michigan Power Grab
It’s still not certain whether an ambitious proposal to amend Michigan’s state constitution will find a spot on the Nov. 4 ballot. But new revelations leave little doubt that proponents are engaged in a blatantly partisan effort to change the state political system to favor Democrats.
The proposal, known as “Reform Michigan Government Now,” is billed by its backers as a relatively neutral measure that would make commonsensical changes to how the state is run. Among other things, it would streamline government by reducing the number of state legislators, slash salaries for state politicians by up to 25%, loosen restrictions on absentee voting and require lawmakers to disclose financial information.
But it turns out that these populist measures are included to disguise a deeply partisan agenda being pursued by Reform Michigan’s Democratic backers. That agenda was laid bare last week when the Mackinac Center, a Michigan think tank, discovered a PowerPoint presentation of the proposal posted on a United Auto Workers regional Web site.
The 35-page presentation’s blunt subtitle is “Changing the rules of politics in Michigan to help Democrats,” and it begins by lamenting that “Democrats have not controlled the entire State Legislature in 25 years.” To fix that, the strategy is to gain control of the redistricting process by which voting district lines are drawn every 10 years.
The slide-show says that the unpopularity of last year’s takes hikes, which were facilitated by Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm, makes it unlikely that Democrats will be in a position to control the next redistricting that occurs in 2011-12. Thus, “Control of Supreme Court most important,” notes the PowerPoint, because the “Court can overturn redistricting done by [the Legislature.]“
To that end, the document calls explicitly for removing judges appointed by John Engler, the state’s last Republican Governor. In a slide titled “Reforming the Judicial Branch,” it says “Reduce the number of Supreme Court Justices from seven to five; two GOP Justices eliminated” and “Reduce the Court of Appeals from 28 to 20 judges, most of them Engler appointees.”
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