By John Lindstrom
Publisher
Posted: January 24, 2019 4:07 PM

We truly have never-ending campaigns, thanks in large measure because we are one of the few nations on earth where we know exactly when elections take place, and therefore can build a political economy around endless campaigning.

That semi-historical/philosophical comment aside we are now already deeply into the 2020 campaign and it has nothing, nada, zip, bupkis to do with the battalion of candidates who have announced they are running for president. No, we are sunk deep into the 2020 campaign thanks to an otherwise mundane court document.

In said document, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson asked for a stay of a trial scheduled to begin February 5 in League of Women Voters v. Benson which challenges Michigan's current congressional and legislative district maps for partisan gerrymandering. She requested the stay in the U.S. District Court in Detroit in part, but not a very big part, because the U.S. Supreme Court is going to hear arguments on gerrymandering in cases from North Carolina and Maryland.

Mostly, though, she asked for the stay because the Department of State is in negotiations on a settlement in the case. And while a stay could involve as many as 34 total districts in Congress and the Legislature, it could lead to new maps for the 2020 election and the possibility that Senate members could have to run for election two years earlier than they otherwise would.

With that we are smack into the level of political hype we typically see just weeks before an election.

Republicans and conservative allies are accusing Ms. Benson, the first Democrat to hold the secretary of state post since the early 1990s, of trying to engineer the biggest partisan power grab in Michigan history. (I suppose Democrats could argue back that the 2011 district maps were the biggest partisan power grab on behalf of the GOP). They claim she is in a corrupt relationship with former state Democratic Party chair Mark Brewer, who is the League of Women Voters' lawyer and (according to one columnist) one of her "top funders" during the 2018 election. She must immediately recuse herself from the proceedings, they charge, but first she has to release all the documents developed during this process.

And she is trying to force the state to spend millions on elections in 2020.

Okay, everyone take a breath.

First, the only way there will be a settlement is if the court approves a settlement.

Second, if there is a proposed settlement, the court could easily sit on a judgment regarding said settlement because the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments on said gerrymandering cases and will issue a decision, presumably, by the end of June.

Third, if the U.S. Supreme Court, given its now more conservative bent, rules that drawing district lines to favor one party over the other is peachy-keen (which it could) then the intervenors (Republican legislators and Michigan Republican members of Congress) in the case could call for the settlement to be rejected. And the court would probably reject it.

Fourth, the district court still has to decide if it will issue a stay or say negotiations be damned, let's have a trial anyway.

Fifth, presuming a settlement is reached, approved and survives the new U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the still Republican-controlled Legislature gets to draw the lines – the newly constitutionally enacted non-partisan citizens commission does not get its crayons to draw lines until after the 2020 census – and even if Democrats challenge that proposal the court could approve it.

Sixth, if the court rejects the legislative plan, it could draw the lines itself or appoint someone to draw the lines, which both sides may find fair or both sides may both hate.

Seventh, in the end the 2020 election will be decided by a variety of issues most on the mind of the voters in 2020, which could be anything.

Will any of what has just been outlined calm the waters now so roiled? Of course not, the ships are facing one another in battle formation and the guns have opened fire. We are fighting the 2020 election and waving the flag of truce from our little dinghy will be unnoticed.

However, could we make one point? Mr. Brewer gave Ms. Benson $500. A quick skim of her campaign finance reports shows dozens and dozens and dozens and you get the idea of people who gave her more money, including one couple who gave her a combined $13,600. Ms. Benson raised $1.547 million for her campaign, meaning Mr. Brewer's contribution was 0.03 percent of her total haul.

When last $500 was a major political contribution you could buy a newspaper, a couple of comic books, a Hershey bar, two doughnuts, a cup of coffee, a pack of smokes and still get change for a dollar. Some bald chap named Eisenhower was president at the time.