I could write a long list of the many bitter disappointments from Election Day and what they will mean for the future, but that would be an unjustifiable downer in light of all of the good things that happened. So, instead, I will ignore the catastrophic bloodbath in the U.S. Senate or the big disappointments in some of the governor’s races. I won’t harp on the House seats we almost won, but did not. I will instead give you a list of fifty happy occurrences. This isn’t a comprehensive list and the votes are still being counted so no list could be complete. Hopefully, it will put a smile on your face.
- 1. The Democrats will take control of the U.S. House of Representatives next year for the first time since January 2011.
2. The Democrats flipped the House and Senate in New Hampshire, and the Senate in Colorado, Maine, and New York.
3. The Democrats won the Trifecta (controlling the governor’s office and both chambers of the legislature) in Colorado, Illinois, Maine, New Mexico, Nevada, and New York. In Oregon and Nevada, they won supermajorities in both chambers.
4. The Republicans lost their Trifectas in Kansas and Michigan.
5. The Republicans lost their supermajorities in the North Carolina legislature.
6. The deep red states of Idaho, Utah, and Nebraska used the ballot to expand Medicaid.
7. Florida voted to restore felons’ voter rights.
8. Paul LePage’s reign of terror in Maine came to a decisive end with the election of Democrat Janet Mills as the new governor.
9. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was denied a third term in office when he lost to Democrat Tony Evers.
10. Democrat Tom Wolf was decisively reelected as governor of Pennsylvania.
11. Gretchen Whitner was elected governor of Michigan, flipping control to the Democrats.
12. Democrat J.B. Pritzker trounced Governor Bruce Trauner of Illinois, flipping control to the Democrats.
13. Democrat Tim Walz was elected governor of Minnesota.
14. The loathsome Kris Kobach was defeated in the Kansas governor’s race by Democrat Laura Kelly.
15. Democrat Jared Polis, who is openly gay, was elected governor of Colorado.
16. Michelle Lujan Grisham was elected governor of New Mexico, flipping control to the Democrats.
17. Steve Sisolak will become the first Democratic governor of Nevada in twenty years.
18. The Democrats retained the governorships of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Oregon, and California.
19. In addition to winning the governorships of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin (the three key Trump states of 2016), the Democrats also won the U.S. Senate races in those states, too.
20. Russian stooge Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California was defeated.
21. The Republican chairman of the House Rules Committee and former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, was defeated.
22. The Democrats won the seat currently held by Mark “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” Sanford of South Carolina.
23. The Democrats won Eric Cantor’s former seat in Virginia, currently held by the loathsome Dave Brat.
24. The Democrats now control ten of New Jersey’s twelve congressional seats, and an eleventh is nearly tied.
25. Democratic women swept the Philly suburbs winning three seats there as well as another in the Lehigh Valley.
26. The Democrats now control seven of Virgina’s eleven congressional seats, driven by the victories of three women.
27. Democratic women flipped two southern Florida congressional seats.
28. Democratic women flipped two of Iowa’s congressional seats.
29. Democratic women flipped a seat in Kansas and a seat in Oklahoma, and a man flipped a seat in Utah.
30. Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky clerk made famous by her refusal to sign marriage licenses for gay couples, lost her bid for reelection.
31. Missouri voted to hike the minimum wage.
32. There were fifteen House candidates that President Trump went out of his way to endorse who lost.
33. Though Beto O’Rourke narrowly lost his bid to oust Sen. Ted Cruz, the Democrats picked up congressional seats in Texas and made significant gains in the legislature.
34. Democrats Rashida Tlaib in Michigan and Ilhan Omar in Minnesota will become the first Muslim women to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.
35. Ayanna Pressley was elected and will be the first black woman to serve in Congress from Massachusetts, and perhaps the first in all of New England.
36. Democrats Sharice Davids of Kansas and Deb Haaland of New Mexico were elected and will be the first Native American women to serve in Congress. Davids will also be first openly LGBTQ member of the Kansas congressional delegation.
37. Missouri and Utah legalized marijuana for medical purposes and Michigan legalized recreational use.
38. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on New York, 29, will become the youngest woman to serve in Congress, followed closely by Abby Finkenauer of Iowa, also 29.
39. Texas is sending its first Latinas to Congress: Veronica Escobar of El Paso and Sylvia Garcia of Houston.
40. It’s looking like Lucy McBath will do what Jon Ossoff could not and win Georgia’s suburban 6th District.
41. In a rare Senate pickup, Jacky Rosen defeated Dean Heller in Nevada.
42. Democrat Mike Espy forced a December runoff in one of the two Mississippi Senate elections, though it will be an uphill climb to win it.
43. The Democrats will control one Senate seat in West Virginia and one (hopefully) in Montana for another six years.
44. Michigan changed their Constitution to ban gerrymandering
45. Colorado, Missouri and (I think) Utah also passed redistricting reform.
46. As frustrating and abusive as the Trump administration has been, people didn’t turn to violence but instead put their trust in our representative democracy and turned out to vote in big numbers.
47. (Selfishly) for the first time since I moved out of Philly into the suburbs, I will be represented by a Democratic state Rep, state Senator and U.S. congressperson.
48. If you’re into this type of thing, California voters overwhelmingly required that all eggs sold in the state come from cage-free hens by 2022.
49. The dead pimp won (hat tip to Jon Ralston).
50. Can you say, “Good afternoon, Chairwoman Maxine Waters”?
So, yeah, I’m still licking some wounds from last night, but there is plenty to be cheerful about this morning.
Thank you for that terrific roundup! A much needed and appreciated (by me, at least) review. The wins over Kobach, Rohrabacher, Sessions, Brat, and Walker are particularly sweet.
Is it wrong of me to wish that Florida would just disappear under the ocean…?
Thanks for the great list. We didn’t get everything we wanted, but we got a lot, and most importantly, the House is under democratic control.
Hopefully the democrats will do the bidding of the voters who gave them control of the House and provide effective oversight of the executive.
For me the result that went the longest to restore my faith in our elections was the victory of Rouda over Rohrabacher.
Followed closely by Scott Walker finally getting the boot in Wisconsin.
You are right to focus on the positives this morning.
Included in your #26: great to see the repulsive Repugnican operative Barbara Comstock tumbling out the door with a footprint on her @$$–finally, it is well heeled in more senses than one.
Following the developments in Maine (#2, #3, #8), maybe it’s not unreasonable to hope for the same footprint on Collins’s @$$ in two years.
In addition, what J. D. Scholten accomplished in IA-4 was nothing less than astonishing.
Sounds like in the distribution of all possible outcomes based on pre-election poll/generic ballot aggregators, the Democrats got a 40th percentile result.
You write:
Do you really think that this is going to happen?
And a subquestion.
Do you think that the dinosaur Democrats who currently run the DNC will rapidly fall from power, or will they fight to the (undoubtedly bitter) end?
Plus another.
As in-your-face as is Maxine Waters’s style, do you think that she will become a successful anti-Trump leader, or instead simply frighten more white voters into his lap?
I really have no clue about any of these questions, and I’m guessing that you might have further insight regarding them.
Thank you…
AG
P.S. Thanks also for this list of 50. I feel more encouraged now than I did when I went to sleep late last night.
Arthur Gilroy, dependably catapulting the right wing propaganda. His personal policy beliefs are far to the right of the most conservative Democratic Party leader. His progressive costume is a filthy, tattered mess.
Bonus points for his explicit racism.
Or…
Centerfielddj, arguebonita, and the rest of the neocentrist clones, dependably catapulting serious questions into neocentrist propaganda.
Bonus points for their explicit neocentrism.
They are part of the UniParty movement.
I pray that they fail.
A New Democratic Party is in birth mode
O’Rourke, Ocasio-Lopez, Waters, Sanders, Warren and a few others are the harbingers of this movement. Pelosi, Schumer, the Clintons and the Obama allies are the real “resistance.”
Resistance to effective change.
Watch the tussle.
Literally trillions of dollars are at stake, let alone this wounded democracy and the fate of the earth itself.
RESIST!!!
Please!!!
AG
You might also wanna mention the two measures in Michigan that set up a nonpartisan board to oversee redistricting and that made it easier to register to vote. Both passed by a lot.
I’m definitely into cage-free hens, so that’s a happy one. California also voted for a non-binding proposition favoring permanent Daylight Savings Time.
I’m disappointed that California didn’t flip more Congressional seats, but getting rid of Rohrabacher is wonderful.
And I’m looking forward to seeing Pelosi in action again. And Maxine Waters takes over a committee? Popcorn time.
Thank you. I desperately needed this. I was feeling pretty shitty last night when I went to bed. A lot of that had to do with being exhausted. To have so many close, high profile races fall the Republican’s way bummed me, too. Not to mention the fact that I think my state can now officially be considered a Red State, based on yesterday’s results. If you don’t reside in the urban areas of Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, or Toledo, the Republicans rule. We were completely shut out on the State level races. Yes, we still have Sherrod Brown, but other than that, the GOP will continue to dominate my state. It was a bloodbath. And I’m not sure what the formula is to break that stranglehold.
Here in my county, turnout was 61.5%, an incredible number. And while we did see a slightly larger level of support than usual for Democratic candidates, it was matched, and often exceeded, by GOP turnout. So when I look at the results, I really don’t know how we move the needle any higher in my neck of the woods. It depresses and saddens me, but I get some hope out of the people who were motivated this cycle, for the first time in their lives, to step up to the plate and take a swing at this. So many new volunteers and so many people canvassing for the first time. We have to find a way to keep these people interested, involved, and motivated. But sometimes it can be a hard sell when you have to try and convince someone that all those months of hard work to move the needle a couple of percentage points from what you usually see should be considered a WIN, especially when the difference in the overall margins is on the order of 30-40 percentage points. Losing 65%-35% instead of 70%-30% is cold comfort.
I need a little time to digest and understand exactly what place I need to be right now. I am now wondering about a lot of things. If I get to retire in the next 3-4 years, do I stay here? Or do I get the hell out? I don’t know. Is all this worth it? Or should I put my efforts to better use in a place or a project where I might be able to see more tangible results before I die. I am having a hard time convincing myself that what I am doing is making any real difference. Maybe I will feel differently in a few weeks, or a couple of months. I think I just need some time to reassess things. It feels as if there has been a shift in how we need to view the lay of the political ground in the era of Trump. And I wonder how permanent this shift might be? Things just feel different to me these days. And I’m not quite sure how to feel about it, and how it should influence how I spend whatever time I have left in this life.
Pretty hard to make the case that OH is purple any longer, sad to say. Just like MO. And ND.
You are a hero for all that you have done.
We’re clearly seeing a realignment with rural less educated voters moving into the Republican camp and the kind of suburbs that overwhelmingly supported Bush moving into the D camp. Sometimes you fight with everything you’ve got but you’re like the salmon swimming upstream. We’re just tiny finite beings up against forces so much larger than ourselves. You fought the good fight and that’s truly important. Thank you for your selfless services to the cause of decency and empathy in our country and our world.
Working the election yesterday I was, of course, surrounded by a lot of Republicans. That is the nature of our electoral process, splitting the representation equally when it comes to people working and overseeing the voting process. It is one of the most bipartisan things I have ever experienced. They were all very nice people, and all highly committed to ensuring that the election process was followed, and that everyone who was eligible to vote got the opportunity. I enjoyed and admired their dedication and their sense of duty. I had many wonderful conversations with them. I have great respect for how hard they worked.
Of course, the one thing you cannot do at the polling place is talk about politics. But I could not avoid coming back, over and over in my mind, to the paradox of what I witnessed and experienced with these people, and the fact that they were probably all supporters of Trumpism. I don’t know if I will ever be able to reconcile these sorts of contradictions in my mind.
Any supporter of Trump is a supporter of white supremacy.
.
. . . paradox and disconnect that folks who are
can somehow nevertheless justify to themselves maintaining affiliation with an organization — the Banana Republican Party — now wholly, officially, and institutionally dedicated to exactly the opposite, i.e., a massive, coordinated, nationwide campaign of voter suppression across an astonishingly wide range of forms, under the transparently false cover of “preventing vote fraud” or “preserving election integrity”.
In practical Reality, this means preventing a million eligible voters from voting in order to prevent that hen’s-tooth-rare case of one actual, in-person voting fraud (who, oddly, always seems to turn out to have been a Banana Republican — who coulda predicted?). Exposing the Reality that that pretended purpose is very obviously not the actual purpose.
Shorter: They can’t win in a functioning democracy because their policies consign them to permanent minority status. And they know this. But they like power. So they cheat.
Yup, always curious how it turns out to be Repubs at the center of most actual incidents of vote fraud.
Their traditional method was fraud via absentee ballot techniques. I would note that it now looks like we are behind in a seat which I thought had been called for the Dem (GA-7) apparently as a result of a whole lotta (Repub) absentees. Hopefully the Dem candidate forces a recount.
. . .libs/progs actually do believe in democracy in principle (though not necessarily that we actually, currently have a functioning democracy — but we want one!), not just in lip service.
And Banana Republicans don’t. For the obvious reasons enumerated above. So when cheaters do get caught, they seem to always turn out to be Banana Republicans. Go figure.
Things went pretty much the same over here in southern Indiana, except for one bright spot for me – my wife won her township board of finance seat. She was one of only two Dems in the county who won. Our Congressional candidate was one of the best I’ve worked with and put together a great ground game, had strong union support (FWIW these days) and still lost to the millionaire who moved here a few months before the 2016 election and bought the seat.
Wow, that is amazing! Congratulations to your wife! I have toyed with the idea of running for Trustee in our township, but am not to the point of taking a stab at it. Those races, of course, are non-partisan. But there are no secrets in our rural township about your politics. In all the time I have lived here, the Trustees are always of the group who are “in the club”. Now, I am on good terms with all these people. But when push comes to shove, I am definitely not a “club” member.
Those township seats are all partisan here, so what a big surprise considering the bloodbath that went down in the rest of the county and district. School boards and town council are non-partisan, but, as you say, its easy to look up voting history (unless a voter doesn’t vote in primaries at all).
Interesting that the Party is listed in those races there. Did not know that.
My political affiliations were fairly nondescript when I was younger. I am sure that by now I have been significantly “outed” in that regard. I have been spotted too often canvassing and doing outreach at local events. I would like to know what kind of talk goes on behind my back. I know a couple of neighbors have been curious enough to actually ask me about it. They are truly puzzled by it. I guess if I’m a Democrat I’m supposed to be some kind of rabid, foaming at the mouth, creature. 🙂
that isn’t white? Cuz if you are (white, that is), how is it that you don’t know your place in the appropriate party?
Hey, former Cincinnatian, current Atlantan.
When are YOU going to run? I mean, you realize that’s the next step, right?
2020 is all you.
Maybe the increased turnout of Dems had a large component of young people, and while they don’t (yet) outnumber the republicans in the electorate, and we can hope that these are young people who will remain reliable voters in the future while the republicans will be aging out of the voter pool.
Thinking long game here.
This may help too: https://www.vox.com/midterm-elections/2018/11/7/18070802/midterm-elections-results-2018-republ
icans-losses-trump-house-democrats-majority
thank you ~Booman
Right on. Let’s not pretend everything is okay now. But here’s something I wrote elsewhere:
It wasn’t a great night. On the other hand, I spent much of the last week or two terrified (as in, having trouble sleeping) of a real nightmare scenario (R’s keep House, maybe even gain seats). And that didn’t happen. We got the house and some governors. Plus, a number of other small things went the right way in a number of places across the country (I’m looking at you, North Carolina — good start).
We’re still in the jungle. I was dreaming of a chain saw, but a machete will do a lot of good, too. So I’m gonna call it a win. Let’s start choppin’.
I just told my wife, as we were having lunch, that if I was comparing our country to a patient in the hospital, I would say that yesterday’s results took us from a grave condition to a serious condition. We are still not in good shape. There are a lot of things that could take us down, but on the whole, a small measure of improvement was made. I would say we are still in ICU, but if you choose to look at the situation with a wide lens, the possibility of an eventual recovery has improved, at least to a degree.
You are correct, that the recent prospect of a worst case scenario unfolding would have been, I think, a fatal blow from which we certainly would not recover in my lifetime. From my personal vantage for my local and state situation, yesterday was a complete disaster. Fortunately, this is not necessarily a reflection of the overall conditions across the country. But sometimes it is hard for one to consider the possibility that the sun is shining somewhere else, when you are standing in a place which just took a direct hit from a tornado.
I also think we are still in the ICU and we will remain there at least until the Nazi (excuse me) is still in the WH and his administration still controls major levers of the government. He and his henchmen ( that includes Pence) must be excised to have a chance at recovery. And here is the rub. He is moving to limit or fire Mueller. Whitaker may be his man. Let us hope Mueller can bring charges quickly and that the Acting Attorney General chooses to be cautious about his own future. The game is afoot. Trump is feeling the heat now.
I live in Indiana and we lost big time to the conservatives, and early in the evening I couldn’t see any bright spots from what seemed like a hopeless situation. So seeing those 50 reasons sure did help me. I hope you too. This was the first we controlled the house for eight years.
Thank you for this, BooMan. I genuinely appreciate it. I’m all about celebrating all that went right. The stuff that didn’t go right shows us how much work we have to do. Is there a 51st good thing? Say, Dems showed up for a mid-term good thing? Anyone yet know if young people voted in greater numbers?
I had no expectations about the outcome of the election other than feeling confident we’d take back the house. Foiling any attempt at a Continental Congress is massively important. I like that voters are catching on to using non-partisan redistricting. That’s a big deal. Every place we can defeat gerrymandering and voter suppression is a win in my book.
I’m takin’ the win.
Seen through another lens:
Republicans won the high profile races.
Democrats won the midterm election.
–>Ds won the US House
–>Ds vote margin bigger than Tea Party’s in 2010
–>Rs LOST 333 legislative seats
–>Rs lost 7 governorships
–>Rs lost key 2020 Midwest states in PA, WI and MI.
(h/t @NoahCRothman)
aka governor Ruiner.
John King on CNN last night really wanted everyone to know that most Republicans were quite happy that Brat lost.
Really hoping that the Senate races in AZ, MT and FL end up in Democratic hands. Kind of doubtful about FL but hopeful for the other two.
Will the Nevada pimp-legislator be stuffed and wheeled out for the NV legislature sessions? Interested minds would like to know.
Just saw on cnn.com that Tester won!
Last night went about as I expected, so no disappointment here. In spite of all the gerrymandering done in the aftermath of 2010, it is still possible to regain a House majority. Practically any of the other points you highlight are ones to celebrate. My state is a bleak place to live at the moment if you are Democratic, but Dems did show they could flip some seats that they weren’t supposed to and were competitive in some seats that have been ancestrally GOP. Minimum wage increase passed here, so that will help some struggling workers here. Rebuilding takes time.
I got to work this morning just as Trump went before the press to declare a resounding victory. How did I wind up in this parallel universe?
Booman, would you be good enough to post something about changes in state legislatures beyond noting which ones flipped? How big were the overall Democratic pickups? And especially, how do you see those changes in terms of your concerns about the “southification” of the whole country?
Here in Oregon every progressive ballot measure passed. An initiative to restrict funding for abortions for people on the Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid) went down by 64-36. But lest anyone think we have no cranks here, there was this:
“Voters in eight of 10 Oregon counties approved a local measure aimed at bolstering the gun rights of residents, delivering widespread victories to an effort championed by militia groups.
“The so-called ‘Second Amendment Preservation Ordinance’ declares that those living in counties that approve it have the right to own semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines, regardless of state or federal law.
“The ordinance also empowers sheriffs in those counties to determine if state and federal gun laws are constitutional and whether to prohibit local resources from being used to enforce them.
“The effort was organized by an Oregon gun rights group called the Committee for the Preservation of the Second Amendment. But it drew broad support among members of two militia groups, the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, who campaigned and organized for the ordinance across the state. “
. . . whackos).
But (though IANAL) I find it very difficult to imagine that stupidity won’t be
on the principle of state-law/constitution supremacy over local laws whenever they conflict and federal-law/constitution supremacy over both.
The biggest takeaway from the election is that the Republican party is still heading into an abyss shouting defiance. Trump simply does not care at all about the long term future of the GOP and is concentrated solely on amping up the Deplorables for 2020.
Seems like the 2016 election was cemented in Florida, but Colorado has moved decisively in the opposite direction from Ohio. Dems now control the entire state government again after Republicans narrowly took the state Senate in 2014. The GOP used to run this state, but no more. And Dems won again in Nevada, which was also a conservative GOP state as recently as Bush I.
Texas was probably the biggest change. Beto O’Rourke lost by 2.7%, 230,000 votes out of 8 million cast. That should never have happened in deep red Texas and signals the future doom of the GOP. They can’t keep hemorrhaging votes in TX forever. Cruz won in 2012 by 56% to 40.6%, a margin of over 1.3 million, but bled over 1 million votes in his reelection campaign.
Georgia is another place where Dems hoped to come out on top, but fell short. But, again the trends are fatal for the GOP. In 2014 Gov. Deal won by over 200,000 votes, which is what you’d expect for Georgia but 2018 election has Kemp leading by only 70,000 and the race may enter a December special election.
These changes might not be fast enough to please liberals, but they are happening.
Abrams (like Beto) had coattails. Jordan Davis’ mother, Lucy McBath may have won GA-6 – Gingrich’s old seat.
Lucy McBath declares victory in 6th District race; Karen Handel not conceding
In Texas, Pete Sessions and Culberson are gone and…
Texas Congressional Delegation Grows More Diverse Amid Several Republican Upsets
And it looks like all of Harris County’s officials are now Dem.
Harris County Election Results
. . . needed and welcome right now, given some very big disappointments “filling” the other half.
Locally, full half of glass: Tester survives all-out Trump assault (4 campaign-rally visits, plus several by DonnieJr and Pence; they threw everything they had into defeating him and failed — [smiley-face emoji]) plus Glibertarian candidate’s incoherent last-minute endorsement of Rosendale (Tester’s Banana Republican opponent) while nevertheless staying in the race (MT politics is weird). Race now called for Tester.
Empty half: looks increasingly like I’m stuck with convicted criminal reporter-assaulting Greg Giantasshole “representing” me in Congress for 2 more years. That one disgusts me on a level close to that of a Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief occupying the Oval Office, and a serially-self-perjuring attempted rapist occupying a stolen SCOTUS seat.
Did we seize the commanding heights of the economy in manufacturing, transportation and finance yet?
Or did I miss something?
Oh but we must trust Dear Leader bc he “tells it like it is” & he “has our backs.”
IOW: keep clapping louder for Tinkerbell & the Orange anus.
So Trump just fired Jeff Sessions.
Go figure.
double wow, getting ready to fire Mueller?
We knew this was coming.
Kinda comical the things he thinks help him in changing the day’s narrative, haha.
He wants someone to fire Mueller & make the investigationa go bye-bye, as the shit just got more real.
For all his many & numerous faults, the Keebler Elf stuck to following the US Constitution. Can’t have that happen, now can we??
I especially like 20 and 38, but they are all just great. I was worried for a bit last night and I was really upset about losing my senator and the lady running for congress around here ( lost some money on those two and two others) but Beto’s loss was a bitter pill, really tough to swallow.
Known crook Darrell Issa’s seat was won by Mike Levin (D), so yay. Used to live in known crook Issa’s district & always voted against the known crook. Moved recently so didn’t get to vote against the known crook for the money shot, but I’m celebrating this one. Victory.
OTOH indicted crook Duncan Hunter (another SoCal spooge creep grifter), son of another known crook & husband to a known indicted crook, was re-elected to his seat in San Diego area. GAH.
One for one, but I’ll take victories where I can get them.
Good things:
1)Michigan will now have a 13-member independent redistricting commission consisting of five independent members, four self-declared Democrats and four self-declared Republicans. Two from each group must agree to the redistricting plan.
2) Michigan now will automatically register people to vote when they obtain or renew their driver’s license or state identification card, as long as they are a U.S. citizen and age 18 or older, will be allowed register to vote up to and including Election Day and will be able to obtain an absentee ballot without providing a reason,(absentee balloting has been limited to people who are age 60 and older, disabled, poll workers or who sign an affidavit saying they will be out of town on Election Day), and will again allow straight ticket voting.
Not so good: Fred Upton reelected for 17th time, but with the closest race yet at 4%. Maybe next time.
. . . commission can approve redistricting plan?
Seems . . . odd? Do you know the rationale?
I mis-stated. A majority must agree, but that majority must contain at least 2 from each of the three groups.
Note: No serving politicians are involved, just citizens, though how to keep previous politicians off will be a puzzle. It’s a start…
Here is more information:
https:/www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/07/proposal-2-anti-gerrymandering-michig
an/1847402002
. . . reasonable check against factional “ganging up”.
Yeah, we need reform like this everywhere.