Redistricting panel asks for public comment on new Michigan Senate voting maps in metro Detroit

The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission holds a public hearing in Lansing. Photo by Anna Gustafson

Updated, 8:34 a.m., 5/23/24

This week, members of the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) finished drawing up 12 options for their second attempt at redrawing six state Senate districts. 

It’s a new process for Michigan where a citizen’s panel, randomly selected and partisanly balanced, redraws congressional and state legislative voting districts rather than the Legislature. Voters in Michigan approved a constitutional amendment in the 2018 midterm election.

The new process has been coated in controversy as the commission has endured infighting and resignations. And after taking a year to create new voting maps, at the end of last year, a panel of three federal judges sided with a lawsuit that said the maps the commission had created diluted Black voting power in 13 Detroit-area legislative districts and the commission was required to redraw the maps.

MICRC Executive Director Edward Woods III told the Advance just as the commission was able to remedy the issues found by the court in the state House maps in time for the 2024 November election, the Senate maps are coming together on schedule. He invited the public to follow along online during meetings and for individuals to attend public hearings in the near future.

“We want everyone that is impacted by the maps, those districts that are impacted, as well as those surrounding districts, to come. Basically, we’re asking for Southeast Michigan to come out: Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties with a special emphasis on the city of Detroit to come and participate in the public hearings and in the engagement process,” Woods said.

State Senate elections aren’t until 2026. Judges are giving the commission until June 27 to submit its final drafts to the court.

The commission began the work on revisions to the six Senate districts on April 18, drawing first drafts of new maps and then holding three public hearings in metro Detroit to get feedback from the impacted districts in early May.

The commission concluded drawing its revised maps on Tuesday and published 12 possible maps online, on deadline.

Public hearings to hear comments from those who reside in districts being altered are scheduled for May 29 and June 6 virtually, followed by three public hearings in the Detroit area:

Although every meeting the MICRC has provides time for public comment, individuals impacted by redistricting really ought to attend the in-person hearings and ensure they are being represented by the decisions being made by the commission, said Jamie Lyons-Eddy, executive director of Voters Not Politicians, a group that was a driving force behind the constitutional amendment that created the MICRC.

Just because a map may be approved by the commission or the court, doesn’t mean the map is the fairest it can be, Lyons-Eddy points out. Those entities have the threshold of constitutionality when it comes to the fairness of the maps. The goal for Voters Not Politicians is to see partisan fairness scores as close to zero so neither political party has an unfair advantage in a district.

“I think it could be successful. I do. I think one concern we have is that there is a very wide range of partisan fairness or partisan bias in the maps that have gone through so far,” Lyons-Eddy said. “We’re always looking for partisan fairness scores that are as close to zero as possible. At one point, it was suggested that being better than the maps we had last decade, is what we’re looking for here. Obviously we want to be better than a blatant gerrymander. … You always want to get to the most fair maps and that means scores as close as possible to zero.”

Lyons-Eddy said the new commission’s long process will be worth it to see this new system to redraw voting lines work.

“The really important thing to remember here is that this process used to be done behind closed doors, by politicians, for politicians,” Lyons-Eddy said. “And as challenging as this process sometimes is, it’s still a million times better than it was before.”

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