(Source: MIRS.news, Published 03/18/2024) The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission's (MICRC) proposed state House map appears to comply with the federal court's order without undue consideration given to race, according to a special master's report.
The report from University of California-Irvine professor Bernard Grofman came at the request of a three-judge panel, who ordered the MICRC to redraw portions of Southeast Michigan's state House districts.
"I would characterize the new (MICRC) map as narrowly tailored to remedy the previously found constitutional violations," Grofman wrote. ". . . I did not identify major flaws with the MI-IRC map that would suggest it failed to address the race-related constitutional concerns of the Court.
"From my social science perspective, I view the (MICRC) as having been able to address and remedy the race-related constitutional defects in its previous map, but the decision as to whether its remedy is an adequate one is, of course, a legal decision for this Court."
The report was due Friday, but was filed today. As a result, the federal panel has given both sides until March 25 to comment on Grofman's report.
The map changed the seven court-ordered districts – 1, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 14 – as well as Districts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 13 (See "Final MICRC Map Has No Incumbents In Same District," 2/28/24).
Judges have until March 29 to accept the map submitted by the commission or one drawn by a separate special master. The final map will be used for this year's House primary and general elections.
The federal appeals panel – U.S. District Judges Paul L. Maloney and Janet Neff as well as U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Raymond Kethledge – heard testimony in November from MICRC members and experts, including one who said the commission was "playing dice" when it drew the legislative maps in 2021 that lowered the number of African American voters in majority-Black Detroit areas.
In December, the panel ruled that 13 state legislative districts – seven in the House and six in the Senate, all in and around Detroit – violate the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
The plaintiffs, Detroit voters led by Donald Agee Jr., also alleged the commission violated the federal Voting Rights Act, but the panel did not opine on that claim.
Grofman noted the MICRC made "substantial geographic shifts" in six of the seven districts that were invalidated. He found the redrawn map reduces the number of districts with pieces of both Wayne and Macomb counties from five to two, and reduces the number of districts with pieces of both Wayne and Oakland counties from four to two.
Dearborn was "fragmented in the 2022 map," Grofman noted, but the redrawn map keeps it "largely whole" in District 3.
"My own conceptual analysis of possible map configurations indicates that it is possible to draw more than seven Black majority citizen voting age districts in the same area. But in the (commission's) remedial map some possible majority Black citizens voting age districts have been drawn as realistic opportunity to elect districts instead," Grofman wrote in a footnote.
