Redistricting commission approves pay raise, new chair amid internal strife

Bickering within the Michigan’s Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) was again on display Thursday as commissioners voted for a new chair and to give themselves a pay raise.

The meeting, held via Zoom, was the first since the MICRC finalized a revised map for seven state House districts ordered to be redrawn by a panel of federal judges. That map, which expanded to include 15 metro Detroit districts, is still awaiting approval, although an expert hired by the court recently said it met the required constitutional standards. 

The maps used in the 2022 election were the first ones designed by the MICRC, which was the result of a constitutional amendment voters passed in 2018. The panel has four Republicans, four Democrats and five independents. Previously, the Legislature was responsible for redistricting with the governor having signoff.

However, the process of redrawing the maps necessitated more than a dozen meetings and public town hall sessions, many of them running in excess of six hours, for a position that is meant to be part-time.

Michigan redistricting commission finalizes revised state House voting map

It also required the additional expenditure of funds from the commission’s budget that had not anticipated a three-judge federal panel in December ordering more than a dozen state House and Senate districts to be redrawn.

“Fifty-five percent of the fiscal year [2024] budget was spent through the four months and we hope to have a resolution sometime in May 2024,” MICRC Executive Director Ed Woods told the commission during a budget update that kicked off Thursday’s meeting. “In terms of the concern, obviously we have bills for February and occurring bills in March, and so trying to get that resolved. As you know, there are two representatives short in the Michigan House of Representatives and that should hopefully be resolved in April, and so hopefully, we could have a resolution in May.”

A proposal was brought forward later to increase commissioners’ salaries during the remedial mapping process from its current rate of 25% of the governor’s salary, or $39,825 a year, to 35% of the governor’s salary, or approximately $55,755 a year. But there was pushback from Commissioner Rebecca Szetela, an independent.

“We just heard that we’re at 55% of budget when we’re a third of the way through the year, and so rather than kind of checking what we’re spending money on, we’re proposing raising our costs by raising salaries,” she said. “That just seems extremely irresponsible from a fiscal perspective.”

A previous attempt at a 7% pay raise in early 2022 was rescinded following public backlash.

It was noted that the 40% raise proposed Thursday would only apply while the MICRC was redrawing maps, which would be retroactive to Jan. 15 on the House district process, which ended March 3, and then during the Senate map redraw, expected to begin next month and last into the summer.

Szetela, however, remained opposed, noting that the commissioners had worked approximately 126 hours since Jan. 1, which worked out to a little more than 11 hours a week. 

“And if you actually figure out the hourly wage for that, it’s about $63 an hour, which is, I think, more than adequate to compensate us for what we’re doing.”

Regardless, the pay raise passed on a 9-4 vote, with Szetela voting no, along with three Republican commissioners: Rhonda Lange, Cynthia Orton and Erin Wagner. Afterward, Lange asked that she be excluded from any raise in pay.

“When you approach our payroll processor, please tell them to not include me in that 35%,” she said. “The constitution states that we will get at least 25%. It does not state that the commission can determine that I’m going to get 35%. So please keep my salary at 25%.”

Commissioner Anthony Eid, an independent, later told The Detroit News that the raise was “fair compensation” for the increased workload brought on by the redraw process and was in line with what the commission received during the initial mapping process in 2021.

The division within the board then surfaced again during discussion over appointing a new chair for commission, with Eid being nominated by Commissioner Richard Weiss, also an independent. While numerous other nominations were made, each was turned down by the prospective nominee, until Lange nominated herself, saying she did so “for an integrity aspect” and a “personal decision that I felt I had to do.”

Before a roll call vote could be taken, Szetela, as she has on several past occasions, expressed her opposition to Eid having any role on the commission, then tried to bring up past issues involving Eid’s dismissal from Wayne State Medical School for a lack of professional behavior, but was shut down by Orton.

“I don’t think that we need to have a list of what you find wrong with any nominee,” said Orton.

Eid had sued the university disputing his 2019 dismissal, which occurred prior to his joining the MCIRC, but the case was dismissed by the U.S. District Court in Detroit, and then rejected on appeal by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

However, Commissioner Brittni Kellom, a Democrat, interjected that attacks against Eid had crossed a line.

“This has really got to stop because it’s dangerous and it’s teetering on something else,” she said. “I don’t know that there’s anything else to say. What I’m personally doing right now is standing in the gap for any commissioner that your personal life is not being brought up. If you don’t want someone, as we’ve done with anything else, you vote against it, but you don’t use this opportunity to create an inappropriate platform after we just talked about community trust and this is where it starts.”

Despite Szetela’s assertion that her objections fell within the scope of his public position, the board finally was able to vote, and confirmed Eid as the new chair by a 10-3 vote, with Szetela getting the three opposition votes from herself, Lange and Wagner.

Divisions aside, the MICRC now must turn to the task of redrawing six state Senate districts, having earlier approved a tentative timeline that will start April 12 and conclude July 30. The state House maps were redrawn first, as the Senate seats will not be up for election until 2026.