From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan,

where the good, the true, and the beautiful are taught, nurtured, and honored,

this is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.

It is a huge transformation of the system in which we have representative self-government replaced by a system in which if you don't like what these 13 people do, you have almost no action that can be taken.

This is your host, Scott Bertram, and that's Stephen Markman, retired Michigan Supreme Court Justice

and Professor of Constitutional Law at Hillsdale College.

He's our first guest on today's program.

We talk in depth with Stephen about the so-called

independent redistricting commissions now in use in some states around the country to redraw congressional

maps. Stephen, thank you so much for joining us. I'm glad to be here. Thank you, Scott.

Let me start by asking you, Stephen, what exactly, what is the promise and appeal, for some at least, of these

quote-unquote independent redistricting commissions when it comes to redrawing these maps?

Well, I think it's a very seductive promise, and I think it's one that a great many people,

Republicans, Democrats, independents, and others find attractive the idea

of minimizing gerrymandering in the every 10-year redistricting process, taking politics out of the

process, diminishing partisanship in the process, in eliminating what sometimes is the

self-interest of politicians who are involved in the process of creating electoral districts

that may and likely will apply to themselves. We'll talk a bit later about the effectiveness

and what we've seen from these commissions thus far.

One thing I want to narrow in on is this idea that the commissions are independent or nonpartisan.

What ostensibly are the ways that at least in some of these states that these committees are supposed to be prevented from becoming

partisan. There's anywhere between seven and a dozen states that report to have some kind of

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