(Source: MIRS.news, Published 09/22/2023) The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) last week raised the cap on the amount of money it could spend on litigation lawyers for the upcoming federal trial to defend the maps it drew.
In preparation for the Agee v. Benson trial, which is expected to start Nov. 1 at the federal courthouse in Kalamazoo, the MICRC increased the contract cap for its lawyers at Baker Hostetler from $3 million to $4.5 million.
“We’ve spent more money now defending our maps than we did creating them,” said Commissioner Anthony EID.
MICRC Executive Director Edward Woods III reported today that the commission spent $1,236,088 up to the point that the maps were completed in December of 2021. Woods also pulled the numbers for the amount the MICRC spent from Jan. 1, 2021, until Aug. 1, which was $3,109,659. It's basically a $2 million difference.
“A lot of people are, rightfully so, watching the taxpayer money that we spend, as they should be, but I find it very unfortunate that we’ve had to spend this much money defending our maps when we were so fiscally responsible in the actual creation of them,” Eid said.
However, he said there were a couple of caveats to the amount of money spent after the maps were completed. The first was that the MICRC paid Election Data Services more than $500,000 to create a second set of clean-up, online public maps.
The second was the $402,000 paid to the law firm Fink Bressack in 2022 when the MICRC started filing litigation against the state to be able to get a budget, which was passed in a supplemental after nearly four months.
Woods said it was expected that defense of the maps against the several lawsuits would cost money.
“With the money we spent and the quality of defense, we think it was worth every penny,” he added.
On Thursday, the MICRC elected Commissioner Cynthia Orton as its new chair. Rebecca Szetela was also nominated, but she refused the nomination.
Eid, Szetela, Commissioners Janice Vallette and Commissioner Richard Weiss were nominated for vice chair. Weiss refused and Eid withdrew. Vallette won the vote 8-3 and became vice chair.
