Excellent court ruling today on the upcoming Missouri proposed Amendment, as reported by “No on 3,” which opposes this upcoming ballot measure (because it unravels anti-gerrymanding provisions Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved two years ago). The court scolded the Republicans who crafted the ballot language. The court then rewrote the ballot language. The judge ruled that the Republican proposed language was “misleading, unfair, and insufficient.” In making this ruling, Judge Patricia Joyce prevented a massive fraud on Missouri citizens.
“No on 3” spokesperson Sean Soendker Nicholson sums it up:
Politicians may lie to our faces about what they’re trying to do with Amendment 3, but they can’t lie in what appears on the ballot,” said Sean Soendker Nicholson, Campaign Director for the No on Amendment 3 campaign. “Everyone needs to understand that politicians are trying to trick voters by hiding a deceptive gerrymandering plan in the state constitution. The whole goal of their plan is to protect incumbent politicians in rigged maps drawn in back rooms by lobbyists and political operatives.
So, Missouri politicians got caught gerrymandering. How shocking. I’m not in favor of partisan moves by anyone. This is a good thing.
Forty-nine to go. I lived in Ohio until 2015. Legislative districts were drawn by the state legislature, more often slightly Republican than slightly Democrat, but more is relative. The district drawing always slightly favored Republicans because African-Americans in the state were self-segregated with Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo blue islands in a red sea. There was an active movement to turn district-drawing over to an impartial commission. I supported the effort, past tense. I learned that the effort was funded almost-entirely by a group of California Democrats who were simultaneously fighting against impartial district-drawing in their own state, where Democrats controlled the process.
Hypocrisy often bothers me as much as partisanship, although the two go hand-in-hand, as in Missouri and California.