A federal court this week approved a new plan for Michigan’s state House districts around metro-Detroit. That’s after judges declared seven districts in the old map unconstitutional because they were drawn predominantly based on race, in violation of the 14th Amendment.
The decision means maps drawn by the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission will be used in the November general election, rather than a backup plan drawn by a court-appointed expert.
That’s good news to Voters Not Politicians Executive Director Jamie Lyons-Eddy. In 2018, Voters Not Politicians spearheaded the constitutional amendment that created the redistricting commission, which was designed to draft its maps in public view.
Lyons-Eddy said the court expert’s maps would have been “bad for Michigan.”
“These are maps the public has not even seen. There is a real risk here. … Those maps were drawn without the public input and transparency that voters overwhelmingly demanded back in 2018,” Lyons-Eddy said Wednesday, before the court’s decision came down.
This story was originally published by Michigan Public. Read more here: https://www.michiganpublic.org/politics-government/2024-03-28/federal-court-oks-micrc-remedial-map
