St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Messenger: Prosecutor mulls removal of two members of St. Louis County reapportionment commission”

“The [reapportionment commission tasked with redrawing St. Louis County Council districts] has reached an impasse before a single bit of data has been crunched or a line on a map drawn. During public comment, a man named Patrick Fox testified that one of the Republicans on the commission, Amy Poelker, isn’t qualified to serve under the county charter.

This is the tragedy of reapportionment battles in too many states. It’s why, for instance, a group called Reform St. Louis is seeking to pass a ballot initiative in the city of St. Louis to take the reapportionment of aldermanic wards out of politicians’ hands entirely. The proposal is similar to the statewide Clean Missouri initiative that passed in 2018 but was scrapped by voters two years later when Republicans in the Legislature placed a misleading initiative on the statewide ballot. The idea behind such reforms is to draw fair legislative districts that aren’t gerrymandered by whichever political party happens to have the most sway.

In states that don’t have truly nonpartisan processes to redraw legislative districts, politicians of whichever party happens to have an advantage often draw skewed maps to benefit incumbents.”

Read the full story on its original platform here.