Michigan redistricting commission meets court deadline for new metro Detroit state House maps

With a Friday deadline looming, the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) held its last public session prior to putting forward new maps for seven state House districts in metro Detroit.

In all, 10 maps were approved to move to the next stage, which is making them available for public comment. Nine of them were collaboratively created by the commission — six on Wednesday and three additional maps on Thursday. The 10th is an individual map put forward by Rebecca Szetela, an independent member of the 13-member commission, which is made up of four Republicans, four Democrats and five independents.

The maps go by a variety of names, including Bergamont, Motown Sound, Spirit of Detroit, Daisy 2, Water Lily, Willow and Riverwalk.

The MICRC was given a Feb. 2 deadline to submit to the court the proposed new maps for the seven state House districts which include the Grosse Pointe and St. Clair Shores suburbs, Downriver, Detroit and parts of Oakland and Macomb counties. They will then be available for public comment through Feb. 23.

“We will meet the deadline and we got it done, contrary to popular opinion,” MICRC Executive Director Edward Woods III, told the Michigan Advance.

The order to redraw the districts was made Dec. 21 by a panel of three federal judges which determined that the MICRC diluted Black voting power in Detroit with new voting maps drawn in 2021, violating the Voting Rights Act (VRA) by predominantly drawing several voting districts on the basis of race. The lawsuit that led to the court order was filed in March 2022 by a group of Black metro Detroit voters. 

Former state Rep. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo serves as a spokesperson for the group that filed the lawsuit. 

Speaking at a forum hosted Tuesday by the MSU Institute for Public Policy and Social Research (IPPSR), Gay-Dagnogo said the current maps divide Detroit “into 22 pieces with only seven members living in the city.”

“If you don’t start with the right data to begin with, the whole process is flawed,” she said, adding that she believed former Black elected leaders for Detroit like former U.S. Rep. Barbara Rose Collins and former state Rep. Alma G. Stallworth would be opposed to the current state of affairs.

“And those who are no longer with us are turning over in their graves to think that we lost 20% of African-American leadership in the House and throughout many urban communities in the city of Detroit. Basically we would have no black Senator in the next upcoming election for a majority-minority seat,” said Gay-Dagnogo.

Woods says the commissioners took their time to carefully and thoughtfully draft new maps following an analysis they received on Monday from their VRA counsel that their goal should be to create at least 11 Wayne County districts where minority voters could have a fair chance at electing their preferred candidate in a primary election.

“We had our team there — our voting rights attorney; our analysts —and so we want to make sure we are following the court order, but also the law because we’re trying to minimize challenges to the maps which we’ve drawn fairly, openly, transparently and with citizen input,” he said.

Finalized maps will be used for elections this year, with the six state Senate maps ordered to be redrawn ahead of the 2026 election.

The MICRC will adopt the final maps by March 1 so they can then be submitted to the three-judge panel for review. The court can then accept the maps, or use its own expert to devise an alternate plan that fits within the VRA. Either way, the expectation is that the new House maps will be implemented by March 29, so that an April 23 filing deadline can be met for candidates seeking election to the new districts.

Jamie Lyons-Eddy is executive director of Voters Not Politicians, the nonprofit group that led the successful push to amend the Michigan Constitution in 2018 and create the MICRC. She says whatever maps are eventually approved, it’s vital that they be maps drawn up by the commission.

“Sixty-one percent of Michiganders voted back in 2018 to give exclusive authority to this commission to draw the maps, and we are confident that they are going to get it done and that they will have maps submitted that will meet all of the constitutional criteria and that the court will find legal,” she said.

Before the MICRC was created, the Legislature would design new districts every 10 years and the governor would sign off.

This week’s virtual sessions followed in-person meetings the previous week that saw low attendance.

During public comment at the start of Thursday’s virtual meeting, several people spoke up in favor of a map submitted by Promote the Vote (PTV), the group that organized and helped pass 2022’s Proposal 2, which included measures like early voting, expanded absentee voting and community ballot drop boxes.

Monique Stanton is the president and CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy, one of the PTV’s partner agencies.

“It is essential that Michigan citizens are at the heart of the redistricting process and I am fully supportive of the Promote the Vote Unity Map because it is fair, equitable, and representative of the communities we serve. We are a coalition, and all of our partners are members of a resource for the commission. Like you, our goal is for the people of Michigan to have a fair and equitable and representative map. We know that as the commission are ultimately responsible for drawing maps and we want to ensure that they’re the best they can be for all of us.”

However, a motion to advance that map failed to pass, with Democratic Commissioner Brittni Kellom saying that the commission wanted to focus on maps they had a direct hand in creating as opposed to those composed by outside groups.

“I don’t mean to disrespect the hard work that goes into it. I am not saying that all people in all organizations mean ill,” she said. “There are lots of folks that work everywhere in combination with each other, right next to each other. But my concern, because I knew this was going to come up again, is there are not specific comments speaking to the maps.”

For her part, MICRC Chair Cynthia Orton, a Republican, said she was proud of the commission for coming together and getting the job done, especially with three new commissioners joining in the last month.

“It’s just been amazing,” she said. “They’ve just hit the ground running with both feet and helped along the process. They’ve each contributed immensely to the process. And I think that one can say this is truly a 13-person commission. Each of the 13 people have contributed and moved this process along and got us to where we are right now.”