The Headlines
Today is the final day of the official public comment period in the state senate redraw, after months of outreach to residents by both Voters Not Politicians and the MICRC. Now the commission will need to take the feedback they’ve received from voters and use it to settle on a final map that balances partisan fairness, reflects communities of interest, and complies with the Voting Rights Act.
The bottom line is that the commission should adopt one of the two maps (Heron and 404) that do the best to meet all these requirements. The Szetela (404) map does a particularly good job representing communities of interest as represented by the public, and could be tweaked slightly to address issues raised by those supporting the more biased Crane and Cardinal maps.
In other exciting news, Voters Ed Fund is proud to announce that we are officially expanding our My City Votes 2024 campaign to include the city of Warren!
The Details
Redistricting
- The official public feedback period for the proposed senate maps ends today, June 21st. However, the public is still able to make comments at each of the commission’s meetings next week.
- Much of this week’s public comment continued to be in favor of Heron (376) and Szetela (404), which are the only two maps that improve on the partisan fairness of the previous plan.
- There were also several comments this week in favor of Cardinal (373), which is supported by known Republican operative Jamie Roe as well as members of the Chaldean community.
- We also saw some late-breaking support for the Crane (385) map. According to our internal analysis, the MICRC’s own published metrics, and the Promote the Vote scorecard, Crane has more partisan bias than our preferred maps, Heron and Szetela, and the Kellom map. The Crane map, if adopted, will result in the party that gets the minority of votes controlling the Michigan Senate when elections are close, and in recent history Michigan Senate races have had very close party vote margins of less than 3%.
- Voters Not Politicians sees the Szetela (404) map as a better choice because it also keeps Detroit communities together, while respecting other communities of interest outside Detroit and significantly reducing statewide partisan bias.
- The Cardinal map is significantly more biased than Crane, and is likely to result in even more frequent minority control of the Michigan Senate. Cardinal also splits Detroit six ways, and is worse than the Szetela map for many other communities of interest who have voiced their concerns to the commission during this process.
- This week, the commission reviewed the mapping process and procedures they will use during deliberation. Their local counsel, attorney Nate Fink, proposed an elimination process when the commission voted on the maps in which any maps that received less than two votes got eliminated, but that proposal was rejected. However, the commission did vote to allow for a maximum of five rounds of voting to achieve a constitutional majority on a map (2 Dem votes, 2 Rep votes, 2 Ind votes) before going into ranked-choice voting.
- The commission also voted to make next week’s meetings hybrid, with commissioners physically meeting at the Detroit Marriott Southfield, June 24 – 26 from 10:00am to 5:00pm. This will allow additional opportunities for in-person public comment to the commission.
- The commission’s next few meetings will be used to deliberate, make any tweaks to maps, and finally, vote on a map to send to the federal court for final approval and adoption.
- The commission will receive a data analysis of public comment from CLOSUP from the University of Michigan’s Ford School for Public Policy. CLOSUP previously submitted a memo which analyzed public comments given before the public comment period. The MICRC’s VRA and partisan fairness experts will also be present during deliberation.
- Throughout both the state house and senate redraws, Voters Not Politicians has prioritized getting the word out to Detroiters and those in affected districts so they could make their voices heard in this process. Our outreach efforts included:
- Reaching thousands of voters directly at their door, with flyers directing them to the public hearings
- Teaching 86 SE Michigan residents how to use the online mapping portal to give public comment
- Generating approximately 8 million digital ad impressions.
My City Votes
As we prepare for the November General Election this year, Voters Ed Fund has been building up our partnerships with local clerks, mayors, and other trusted community leaders in our My City Votes communities to make sure that voters, especially those in underrepresented communities, know their voting options and have confidence in local and state election systems.
That is why we are excited to announce that we are officially adding another municipality to our My City Votes 2024 campaign: Warren, Michigan, the third-largest city in our state!
With a population of over 135,000, Warren provides Voters Ed Fund with an opportunity to reach even more voters from historically marginalized communities. Thanks to our collaboration with the Warren Mayor and other local leaders, we will now be able to reach an additional 53,000 voters to help them exercise their constitutional right to vote this November.
What’s Next
While there are still a few opportunities for public comment, much of this process is now in the hands of the MICRC. Once the commission submits its final map to the court, the Reviewing Special Master (Bernard Grofman) will have 2 weeks to submit his report on the map. As with the house redraw, we expect the court to follow the recommendations of the Reviewing Special Master.
As a reminder, here is the remaining timeline for the Senate Redraw:
- June 24 – 26: Senate Maps Deliberation (10 AM – 5 PM.)
- June 27: Senate Map due to the U.S. District Court
- July 5: Plaintiffs file any objections to the Senate plan with the court
- July 12: The defendants’ responses to any objections by the plaintiffs. The Reviewing Special Master submits his report on the Commission’s submitted map
- July 19: The parties may each file briefs commenting on the Reviewing Special Master’s report.
- July 26: The court will adopt a remedial Senate districting plan.
Want to receive these updates in your inbox? Use this link to join our weekly update list.
