Tag: Thurible

Tired of the divisiveness in politics and frustrated with state district maps that she felt were preserving incumbents and not accountable enough to voters, Fahey, an independent, said she knew people were hungry for change after a presidential contest dominated by outsiders. "If you want to help, let me know," she wrote, adding a smiley face. Thousands did. Nearly two years later, Fahey is the founder and executive director of a more than 5,000-person volunteer organization, Voters Not Politicians, that spent months gathering signatures to get a redistricting initiative on the ballot in November that would appoint an independent citizen commission to draw Michigan's voting maps. This week, they won a major court battle after the state Supreme Court shot down a challenge to the initiative. Colorado, Missouri and Utah will all have initiatives on the ballot that would, in varying degrees, remove lawmakers from the redistricting process. "People recognize that elections just aren’t working," said Fahey, 29. But increasingly sophisticated districting technology and voter data has made gerrymandering more efficient, leading parties to unusually strong holds over certain districts and even state legislatures. In hopes of barring lawmakers from choosing their own voters, some states have instead decided to let nonpartisan or bipartisan groups of voters draw the districts, achieving varying degrees of autonomy from the legislature. Currently, 13 states including California and Arizona have a commission whose job it is to draw the districts; five other states have advisory commissions, and another five states have backup commissions in case the legislature cannot agree on new maps, according to the National Council on State Legislatures.