The federal three-judge panel overseeing the redrawing of Detroit’s state House districts on Wednesday ruled that the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission Motown Sound FC E1 remedy map meets muster with federal law and will therefore be implemented for the upcoming 2024 elections.
In a per curiam opinion released in Agee v. Benson (USWDM Docket No. 22-00272), the federal panel said there was no basis to reject the remedial House plan that changed 15 districts overall after seven were ruled unconstitutional.
The commission was sued for violating the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause for using race as predominant factor in drawing its 2021 House and Senate configurations for the Detroit area.
The plaintiffs had objected to a special master’s review of the Motown Sound map and wanted the court to enjoin it in favor of another remedy map. The court rejected those arguments and went forward with the commission’s map.
“As adopted, the remedial plan departs significantly from the Hickory plan, in which we invalidated seven House districts in our December 2023 order. The Hickory plan featured ‘spokes’ northward into Oakland and Macomb counties, whose purpose and effect, we found, was to reduce the ‘black voting age population’ in Detroit-area districts,” the opinion said. “As a result of these changes, the number of Detroit area districts that cross the boundary between Wayne County, on the one hand, and Oakland or Macomb, on the other, dropped from nine to four; and the number of majority-black districts in the Detroit area increased from six to eight. In addition – as to the seven districts at issue here – the remedial plan created three majority-black districts, whereas before there were none.”
Jamie Lyons-Eddy, executive director of Voters Not Politicians, the group that championed the 2018 amendment creating the commission, said she always had faith in the amendment she helped design and in the voters who supported independent redistricting.
The decision today, she added, reaffirmed that faith and upheld the will of the people.
“Despite the challenges the commission has faced, the independent public servants of the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission successfully voted for new maps which responded to public comment, addressed the issues identified by the court, and followed constitutional criteria – and which received broad support from the people who live in the affected districts,” Lyons-Eddy said. “This redraw also strengthened Michigan’s independent redistricting process going forward. The transparency that’s central to the amendment allows all of us to witness and participate in every step, and the commission, pro-democracy organizations like ours, and the public are all learning from it.”
She said VNP is looking forward to the state Senate redraw that is to commence soon, are planning to engage in that process as it unfolds.
This story was originally published by Gongwer. Read more here: https://www.gongwer.com/news/index.cfm?a=630620101
