Drive Against Gerrymandering

-Source-The New York TImes- The movement to take politics out of setting legislative district boundaries seemed to suffer a grievous and perhaps even mortal blow this spring when the Supreme Court passed up three chances to declare partisan gerrymandering unconstitutional. But it turns out that reports of its death are exaggerated. As federal courts dither over how to resolve the issue activists have begun tackling it state by state at the grass roots. In Michigan a proposed constitutional amendment to end gerrymandering written and promoted by a nonpartisan group called Voters Not Politicians will be on the ballot in November unless blocked by a court challenge that has so far fallen short. So many Michiganders signed petitions to bring the measure to a vote 110000 more than state law requires that the group ended its signature campaign 70 days short of the six months allowed. In Missouri another nonpartisan group called Clean Missouri needed 180000 signatures to get its anti-gerrymander initiative on the ballot; it collected 346000. Final certification is expected next month. In Utah a group called Better Boundaries collected 190000 signatures 75000 more than were required to place its proposition to end gerrymanders on the November ballot. And in Colorado both the Democratic-run state House and the Republican-run Senate voted unanimously in May to place two proposals on the November ballot that would shift the duty to draw state legislative and congressional districts away from lawmakers and into the hands of independent redistricting commissions. Those proposals join another in Ohio that became law in May. The state legislature there put a measure to curb partisan gerrymandering of the states congressional districts on the ballot for the states May 8 primary after it became apparent that a citizens campaign for an even tougher measure was likely to succeed. Ohioans approved the legislatures version by a three-to-one margin. Its the best reform map weve seen in decades" said Joshua Silver the chief executive officer of the clean-government advocacy group Representus which has offered support to all five initiative campaigns. It is remarkable that five states are holding ballot measures on the issue in a single year; only five had taken them up over the entire preceding decade.