Federal judges have ordered 13 of Michigan's House and Senate seats redrawn and ordered the Secretary of State to refrain from holding elections in those districts until they are redrawn in compliance with the Equal Rights Act of the U.S. Constitution.The significant court ruling Thursday from a three-judge panel could have broad implications for the 2024 election, potentially forcing neighboring districts to be reshaped, and could influence which party controls the Michigan Legislature.
Michigan's Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission and the Detroit Democrats who challenged the maps have until Jan. 2 to submit briefs addressing how legislative district boundaries should be redrawn.
In the past, the plaintiffs have argued the courts could either accept their proposed maps, could order the maps redrawn by a special master or could order the maps redrawn by Michigan's Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. It's not clear which remedy the courts will order. In their decision Thursday, federal judges Raymond Kethledge, Paul Maloney and Janet Neff said the commission's experts relied on incomplete primary data to set Black voting age percentages that would gaurantee a Black-preferred candidate could make it through the primary. That information was critical to in the Detroit area, where elections are largely decided in the primary. "Yet these experts told the commissioners again and again− based on general election data alone − that black-preferred candidates would 'perform well' in these districts," the opinion said. "That was a grave disservice to everyone involved with this case, above all the voters themselves."Plaintiffs have argued that the experts guiding the commission consistently pressured its members to lower the number of Black voters in Metro Detroit House and Senate districts out of an effort to "unpack" past districts and achieve better partisan fairness scores across the state