Democracy Reform: Voters Not Politicians. Katie Fahey

Gerrymandering, the partisan process of redrawing political maps to favor one political party over the opposition, is often used unfairly to take power away from many voters. 

Voters Not Politicians is a highly successful grassroots campaign against gerrymandering in Michigan that began with a simple Facebook post by its young founder, Katie Fahey. The group took on party bosses, won a ballot initiative, and changed state law. This episode discusses how this campaign could be a model for others.  

In 2018, Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved a citizen-led ballot initiative to create an independent commission to draw up the state’s congressional and legislative maps. This week, a federal court threw out a second attempt by the state Republican Party to over-turn the result. Months from now a new state redistricting commission will be given the job of fairly drawing a legislative map.

This episode of "How Do We Fix It?" received funding from Solutions Journalism Network, a non-profit group that trains and connects journalists to cover what's missing in today's news: solutions, and how people are responding to problems.  

Recommendation: Jim is reading "Midnight In Chernobyl" by Adam Higginbotham.  

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