(Originally published July 20, 2011) The coverage of Betty Ford’s funeral last week pushed my thoughts back to the mid-1960s, when I ran the Capitol Hill congressional office of Rep. Paul Todd, Jr., D-Kalamazoo. Those were days when Rep. Gerry Ford, R-Grand Rapids, was on his way up in a career that would ultimately take […]
Republican
Posted inMichigan Government
Redistricting: How political map-making leaves voters with uncompetitive, pre-determined elections
(Originally published Feb. 10, 2011) In the past decade, voters decided 664 races for seats in the Michigan Legislature. The majority of those races were never in question. Millions of votes didn’t really matter. Districts for many state representatives and senators are not competitive. Many seats are engineered for partisan advantage. A consequence is the […]