Maddow: Michigan GOP 'can do whatever they want' due to gerrymandering

On her show Wednesday night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow explained that Republicans in Michigan were still in control due to redistricting.

"Michigan Republicans are moving full steam ahead with whatever they want, they've got control of both houses of the legislature, they've got the governorship," she said. "Even after they come back next year for the next session, even after this election, which was not very kind to Republicans, including those in Michigan, they're still going to have control of both houses of the legislature. They're still going to have the governorship. They are steaming right ahead. Republicans can do whatever they want in Michigan, now and for the foreseeable future."

Michigan Republicans have recently pushed for controversial legislation to restrict abortion access, cut down the power of unions and ban Shariah law.

Maddow noted that Obama won the state by nearly 10 points over his Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Yet, the apparently Democratic majority of Michigan residents were not reflected in the state legislature, where Republicans still have a solid majority.

"What has happened in Michigan is not some sort of miscounting of the votes," Maddow explained. "It is not a mistake. It is weird, quite deliberately, and weird by design."

"Elected officials draw up new districts for electing members of Congress and in state legislatures every ten years after the new census. Well, Republicans were in charge this time around in Michigan, so it was the Republicans who drew up the maps, and so Republicans got themselves pretty good advantage. They got to decide how to clump voters in certain districts, how to divide voters in other districts, so the election could produce the maximum number of Republican candidates that conscience and the federal Justice Department would allow."

Maddow noted that Republicans in some swing states were pushing to make the electoral college be determined by congressional districts rather than through the popular vote, giving them the same sort of advantage in the national presidential election as they have in the state elections.

Maddow guest, MSNBC co-host Steve Kornacki, noted that Romney would have won if such proposals had been in place during the 2012 election.

Watch video, courtesy of MSNBC, below:

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