New Emails Show Michigan Republicans Plotting to Gerrymander Maps
Last edited Thu Jul 26, 2018, 12:11 PM - Edit history (1)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/us/michigan-gerrymandering.html
WASHINGTON Newly disclosed emails show Michigan Republicans angling to give their party a dominant position through gerrymandered maps and celebrating the plight of their Democratic rivals.
Republicans in the state have denied that they sought partisan gain when they drew new legislative boundaries in 2011. But a federal lawsuit, which argues the maps are unconstitutional, has unearthed records showing Republicans intent on drawing boundaries that would help their party.
The emails, disclosed in a filing on Monday, boast of concentrating Dem garbage into four of the five southeast Michigan districts that Democrats now control, and of packing African-Americans into a metropolitan Detroit House district. One email likened a fingerlike extension they created in one Democratic district map to an obscene gesture toward its congressman, Representative Sander M. Levin.
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The Detroit News, citing another filing in the lawsuit, reported last week that Mr. LaBrant also pledged that month to give one Republican congressman at the time, Dave Camp, whatever Dave wants in his district.