• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • News
  • Events
  • Donate
  • About
  • Contact

The Ballenger Report

Bill Ballenger: #1 Political Pundit in Michigan
All the Truth, All the Time
Michigan's Only "No Spin Zone"
Who is Running for What? Who Will Win?
Can Democrats Seize Total Control of Michigan Government in 2022?
Flint Water Crisis: What's Really Going On!
Politicians
Politicians
You are here: Home / Uncategorized / U.S. Supreme Court Stops MLWV Gerrymandering Claims in Michigan

U.S. Supreme Court Stops MLWV Gerrymandering Claims in Michigan

May 24, 2019 by tbreport Leave a Comment

U.S. Supreme Court blocks redrawing of Ohio, Michigan electoral maps

By Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley
Reuters•
May 24, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked lower court rulings that had ordered Republican legislators in Michigan and Ohio to redraw U.S. congressional maps ahead of the 2020 elections after finding that the current districts were designed to illegally diminish the power of Democratic voters.

The lawsuit in Michigan was filed in 2017 by the Michigan League of Women Voters (MLWV), with heavy support from the Michigan Democratic Party and its satellite groups. Two months ago, a three-judge federal panel in Detroit sided with the MLWV, but that decision has now been put on hold and may never in fact go into effect.

A five-justice majority of the high court granted requests from Republican lawmakers in both states to stay the Michigan and Ohio decisions. The lower courts found that the electoral maps had been drawn to entrench the majority party in power, a practice known as partisan gerrymandering, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

While both disputes involve U.S. House of Representatives districts in the two states, the Michigan case also challenges districts in the state legislature as well.

The decisions in Michigan and Ohio that were put on hold by the justices were the latest rulings by federal courts determining that electoral maps designed by a state’s majority party unconstitutionally undermined the rights of voters who tend to support the other party.

Two other gerrymandering challenges are already pending at the Supreme Court, with rulings due by the end of June. In one case, Republican legislators in North Carolina are accused of rigging congressional maps to boost their party’s chances in that state. In the other case, Democratic lawmakers in Maryland face similar allegations over one U.S. House district.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)

************************************************

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Newsletter Sign-up

Receive The Ballenger Report in your inbox!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Follow on twitter

Tweets by @Bill_Ballenger
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Upcoming Ballenger Events

  • Mar
    31
    "Off the Record," MICHIGAN PUBLIC TELEVISION, WKAR.ORG, EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN
    All Day
  • © 2023 · The Ballenger Report · Login · Sitemap

    Support The Ballenger Report - Contribute Today!

    Thank you for visiting! You have let us know that what we produce about Michigan politics and government matters to you. More people than ever are reading and listening to what we put on our news site, and the 2022 election was especially momentous. Your support makes all the difference.

    As you know, unlike many news websites, we haven’t put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism as open as we can, but we need to ask for your help. We are editorially independent, meaning we set our own agenda. Our journalism remains truly free from commercial influence or bias. We are not subsidized. We don’t put up paid advertisements. No one edits our Editor. No one steers our opinion.

    But The Ballenger Report (TBR) takes time, money and hard work to produce. If everyone who reads or listens to our material — and likes it! — helps to support it, our future would be much more secure.

    Whatever you might want to contribute will help TBR continue. Thank you.

    Contribute to The Ballenger Report