Like Duchin, Wang mentioned the massive quantities of input concerning the redistricting process from voters throughout the state. We then encourage you to engage and ask more questions in the YouTube chat box, on the Facebook chat, or on Twitter you can tweet your questions to #Policytalks. Copyright 2022 Salon.com, LLC. I'm sorry, taking so long. Oh, you're muted. District 1 District 2 District 3 District 4 District 5 District 6 District 7 District 8 District 9 District 10 District 11 District 12 District 13 District 14 District 15 District 16 District 17 District 18 District 19 So yes, we're not in the business of predicting lawsuits or commenting on them, but Jon, maybe you can just take us through, how did the commission get to these 40%, 45% numbers, and what's the argument in favor of them for enhancing African-American representation? That's the great thing about sports. And it just means that you have a community of shared, let's say economic or historic or ethnic interest, and you want to vote as a block to get those interests met. On Feb. 3, the Michigan Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit filed last month that challenged the state redistricting commissions new map, claiming it would disenfranchise Black voters by eliminating majority-Black districts in Detroit. There are several ways to think about what is fair and to measure fairness in redistricting maps. News never stops. The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission created new maps for Michigan. 0:04 1:00 Michigan's redistricting commission released new state and congressional boundary maps, just in time for the 2022 election cycle. Michigan redistricting advocates tout new process after first election under new maps By: Julia Forrest - November 23, 2022 6:12 am Getty Images The 2022 midterm elections featured a number of competitive congressional and legislative races across the state, from Traverse City to Midland and from Grand Rapids to Downriver. So what we have been seeing lately are politicians who have been super willing to draw districts that do pack a lot of Black voters together, but they call them partisan gerrymanders. One thing counties can do when they redraw lines is add or subtract districts. Colorado had to remove its independent chair because they found Facebook posts that questioned the results of the 2020 election, and they realized that maybe this wasn't the person who they wanted as chair of the Independent Redistricting Commission drawing the states lines for the next decade. Now social scientists will tell you that there is no magic number or percentage that is for sure enough. Members approved new maps which shrunk the size of the commission by two seats and helped Democrats win 13 of 19 seats in the county that is increasingly Democratic. 91.3 Port Huron 89.7 Lansing 91.1 Flint, PublishedDecember 7, 2022 at 4:15 PM EST, Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? For all the horror stories about partisan gerrymandering in states like Ohio, Wisconsin and North Carolina, the state of Michigan now stands out as a rare and fine exception. In the Macomb and Kent cases that he lost in 2021, Brewer asked the state Supreme Court to revisit one of its own decisions, from 1982. Data from Voting & Election Science Team, The New York Times, U.S. Census Bureau and individual state governments. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. It still haunts county boards, foes say. I'm Tom Ivacko, the Executive Director of CLOSUP, which is the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy. And the one on my right, the last one on my right, took place at Dearborn, Michigan, at the Performing Arts Center. And then we also partnered with rural partners of Michigan. There are these two different sets of case law on gerrymandering as well. The meeting was moderated by Matt Grossmann, director of the Institute for Public Policy at Michigan State University, and hosted three panelists: Nancy Wang, an executive and founder of the Voters Not Politicians group (VNP), Zack Gorchow, executive editor and publisher of Gongwer, and Moon Duchin, a mathematician at Tufts University who runs the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group (MGGG) Redistricting Lab. Townships Labels visible at zoom level 13. And what we had to make sure then was to deal with four things and to make them kinda the backbone, the foundation, of a really independent, truly independent but also functional process, and that is we had to make sure that the commission was composed a certain way to make it kind of set up for success. Senate may vote on long-awaited recycling reform. 0. I just think that was an awesome experience that the commission engaged in, and instead of doing 10, they did 16. The six state Senate Map was the Linden map, and then the State House Map was the Hickory. David Daley, former editor-in-chief of Salon, is the author of the national bestseller Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesnt Count and Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy.. The demographic and partisan breakdown of Michigans new map, The Michigan state supreme court dismissed a. Republican political consultant Jamie Roe, who lives in the county, said the maps are better than the alternatives because they kept more communities together. And it's really provided fair maps for our state and something we can be proud of. Once again, as you know, we did this in a pandemic and really didn't get to do our face-to-face outreach until May, but I really wanna give a shout out to not just the commissioners who are part of this and drove this process, but also our state wide partners, Voters Not Politicians, Charlie Beal and his team did an outstanding job. A re-districting deadline is fast approaching that could remake Burlington's electoral map, especially an area encompassing University Heights. That's true, if the commission is right in its guess, that 40% is enough. Using the efficiency gap measure, the county is gerrymandered. It's been a remarkable transformation in a state where, for decades, elections were rigged by gerrymanders of historical proportions. The state Supreme Court declined to take up a challenge to the districts. We welcome feedback, tips and corrections. Michigan's new congressional and legislative district boundaries officially became law on March 26, 2022. Yes, Michigan and Michigan State can partner to advance the state, and we're proud of our successful relationship to aid and evaluate the new redistricting process. The only exception is Oakland County, whose commission draws its own boundaries. 1:21:14.0 NW: So I guess that's my long way of saying, no, these are the law of the land. MICHIGAN The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) is expected to vote on the final political district maps starting Dec. 28. 0:45:29.1 JE: I should point out that both Detroit commissioners argued against this map and voted against this map and now bring it back comments by Nancy and Edward. In some counties, commissioners took an active role to limit COVID-19 restrictions like mask mandates. Michigan has trended blue in statewide elections for the past few cycles, with Democrats carrying the state in presidential elections, governor races and U.S. Senate races. It should be about ensuring that every vote counts the same, and that the candidate who wins is the candidate chosen by the voters, not the other way around. Youve calibrated successfully,. There's cracking and there's packing, right? Bob Robinson, the Democratic county treasurer who was on the apportionment board, said his Republican peers did a good job, and they did not make a lot of changes. 1:27:11.6 DD: States that do not have the ballot initiative have had a really difficult time with it. 0:55:45.0 DD: The framers of this amendment saw this coming, the safety valve was the Virginia Supreme Court, they appointed two special masters, one from a list proposed by Democrats, one from a second list proposed by Republicans after the initial one was rejected for over-partisanship. And then finally, we had to have a consensus element, because there's no incentive for different people to work together if they can just kind of stalemate and 0:13:31.7 NW: Or think that the process is rigged against them, and so you really want it to make sort of a fair and balanced process, where all of the different parties feel represented and feel like they have a voice and that their vote on the commission is important as any Is as important as anybody else's. The same pattern repeated itself in 2020, when the Democratic presidential candidate carried MIchigan by 150,000 votes. Thank you to the Ford School and IPPSR. When the commission broke down, they had a back-up plan in place, the court came through, did a good job, and those maps have gotten good grades. Greenville Seeks Input On Redistricting Map. But in Michigan this November, voters, not politicians, were the real winners on Election Day. A Democratic swing in the Michigan Legislature highlights the role that redistricting can play in the outcome of elections. And then the commission also has to make available all of the data that it used to draw those maps. Public Policy graduate student Ryan Swick said this redistricting process is solving a representation problem in the state and federal legislatures and providing a framework for other states to use. 0:05:23.6 Nancy Wang: Great. Reformers achieved something really amazing, they needed to push this commission through the legislature, not once but twice, once under Republican control, then again, when Democrats took over in 2019, politicians in no other state had ever given up control of this process willingly. 0:25:07.9 EI: I am excited to be here to represent the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. 0:54:01.6 DD: If Arizona teaches us how determined partisans can be to subvert and hijack commissions that draw these lines after they have been constituted, Virginia and Ohio offer lessons on how these commissions should be constituted in the first place, and how poorly they function when politicians themselves are allowed in the room. But the presumption is going to be with the commission that these maps are valid, and that is because we have a process that is independent, that there are these strict criteria, and there's gotta be a way for us as a state to have a mechanism for drawing maps that are not gerrymandered by politicians. After redistricting, all will be contested in the 2022 midterm elections. Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission The League of Women Voters argue in a brief submitted in the case that the independent legislature theory "would open the door to the retroactive abrogation of all state court rulings that have invoked state constitutional grounds to strike down state statutes - but only as to federal elections.". 0:57:02.3 DD: The State Supreme Court threw out both of those maps last week. Reducing gerrymandering means fewer extremists who are guaranteed their seats. Gerrymandering never died in Michigan. If we look at the third criterion of communities of interest, if you think that the people of Detroit are a community of interest bound together by shared cultural, historical, or economic characteristics, then this map fails to reflect that community and questions why would the commission need to do this to the City of Detroit? 0:33:31.3 EI: So I wanna give a shout out to Sarah Rhinehart and Yvonne Young for collecting these numbers. States that do have the ballot initiative have been seeing all kinds of complications added to that, states making it harder and harder to get onto the ballot. (If youre wondering why theres still a efficiency gap, theres a non-sinister reason: Wasted votes are simply more common among Democrats because they tend to live together in large urban areas.) That was done by our commissioners, I mean it was an exciting process to get people engaged to share the story about Michigan's new redistricting process, the seven-rank criteria, and just interact and just get the word out and increase awareness about this new redistricting process. In states like North Carolina and Georgia, you had Republican donors buying computer software for civil rights groups so that they could draw their own districts, and it worked to the advantage of Black voters across the South, but also Republicans, because as you drew these packed districts with most of the Black voters, who also happen to be most of the Democratic voters, you bleached all of the surrounding districts, a whiter, more conservative, more Republican. It really is about the census, it's about redistricting and fair maps, and then it's about voting. There's a lawsuit pending against the maps that the commission drew. 2141 people provided in person, and this is from May. 0:46:21.9 MG: Thanks Jon. Evidence-based. We thank you for your questions, your comments, and your participation. We believe these same Michiganders can look at our process and share with us how we can improve. 0:35:20.6 EI: Last but not least, if you have to contact us call 1833 YOU DRAW. And our public engagement in terms of in-person, and this data is collected by the Michigan Department of State. That's bad. District 1 District 2 District 3 District 4 District 5 District 6 District 7 District 8 District 9 District 10 District 11 District 12 District 13 Hide Legends Census Legend Counties Labels visible at zoom level 10. 0:28:02.3 EI: Let me say it again, this is government for the people, by the people, and this is the best, I think the best example of high school civics that you will ever see is that before they could draw any line, not a map, not a district, a line, they had to hear directly from Michigan voters. Monday, December 5, 2022 1:30am; . There's tough legal issues, so tough that one court in a VRA case has described it as, "These commissions are facing competing hazards of liability." I teach them as a part of my job, but that's a tool. 0:40:24.0 JE: And I bring this up because for instance, according to measures or notions of fairness that the Supreme Court of Ohio used this very same week, this past week, to toss out the Ohio Maps as extreme outliers that favored the Republican Party. 0:08:51.6 NW: And then finally, the third hallmark of the process we have now is that it's transparent. From the first round of public hearings all the way to the second round. It's my pleasure to kick off tonight's event. Impartial, because the solution was to end this practice of one party putting their hands, their thumbs on the scale to give themselves as much advantage in the next set of elections as they could. It's about ensuring that the maps are responsive to voters rather than the politicians that draw them and it's about guaranteeing that in our representative democracy, a majority of citizens still have the power to select their leaders, and also to vote them out when they so desire. He said the plan submitted by Ed Bruley, the chair of the county Democratic Party, would have pitted two incumbent Democrats against each other and split more communities. 2022 Bridge Michigan. Maybe even a 12-3 congressional map in Ohio. It was called the unholy alliance in many ways. Before, we didn't even have any idea as to who was in the room drawing maps. That's 1833-968-3729. In the end no Democrat even ran in that district, Bruley said. This report brings together work by several research teams at Michigan State and the University of Michigan, and also at the MGGG Lab at Princeton, Yale, and Duke. And these were the comments that were used by the commission to draw the maps. An argument that this is probably good enough and if so, it will be great because there'll be many more districts than ever before, and if the court listened to what the plaintiffs say, would actually reduce the number of districts in which Black voters have a say. This first-time process has been an opportunity to try out a new approach, to redistricting and drawing fairer maps, Grossmann said. Here's what happened: When 49.9 percent of Michigan voters backed Democrats for Congress, and 47.6 percent preferred Republicans, this year's outcome turned out as fairly as possible. The Ohio redistricting process is designed to encourage the legislature to pass a map with bipartisan support, but the majority party can pass maps that last for four years (as opposed to the normal ten years) without the support of the minority party. We're gonna hear from an expert panel on their evaluations of Michigan's new redistricting, including our new maps, our new process and their thoughts about what worked well and perhaps what could be improved for next time around. December 7, 2022. The states independent redistricting commission wrapped up its mapping work Tuesday, approving three maps outlining districts for state House, Senate and Congressional races beginning in 2022. Number of districts 15 30. And the City of Detroit is split into eight districts that have the trip lines going far into Malcolm and Oakland county suburban areas. The exchange of ideas. But in too many states where politicians draw their own lines and choose their own voters, the results were very different on Election Day. So I see we're on the mapping criteria slide. Hello? Without primary data, its very hard to know whether preferred candidates of Black voters or any other group will be able to get through to general elections. As a result, predictably, you had a series of three-two votes on this board that selected a partisan executive director, a partisan map maker, ultimately a three-two votes on the maps themselves. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. Story editing by Sarah Frostenson. So I saw, yes, the commission, I think And we said at the time, made the wrong decision to go behind closed doors, but yet the process of holding them transparent and having the public asks these questions, and then going to court and getting the release of those VRA memos, that is kind of the process working the way it was designed to. Matt is Director of IPPSR at MSU, and he's also a Professor of Political Science there. Will you help us achieve these goals? Michigan, a purple state, has a redistricting commission, which prevented what would have been split control between the Republican legislature and Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer. 0:42:13.3 JE: The commission has argued that about 40% Black voters is enough for Black voters to carry the day. Neither do we. Steve Lett who affiliates neither with the Democrats or Republicans. The maps that the Commission created and released Tuesday each won that 2-2-2 approval from its members on the first round of voting, though by slightly different margins demonstrating there was not complete unanimity (but thats democracy for you). If you dont know whos going to run, youre flying blind.. It should be noted that while these representative breakdowns are likely predictions, the Congressional map includes three toss-up seats where the margin in 2020 was less than five percent, and two that were decided by less than 10 percent. Theres going to be a recount or a partial one of two statewide proposals that were on the ballot: Proposals 2 and 3. So much credit goes to Edward and his team. They had to have a set of strict rules that they had to follow, otherwise you would just have complete chaos or dysfunction or paralysis. . Final and District Maps. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib) WASHINGTON (AP) - The . And then there is a tension between, well, what if you advocated for a community of interest, but then there's another competing 0:21:39.1 NW: There's a different community of interest that kind of shares that same area, right? Wang also acknowledged some challenges with the new process. Its really hard to figure out how to organize it all, when you have 9000 pieces of maps and testimonies, which ones are more important than others? Wang said. Michigans nonpartisan, nonprofit news source, Critics say that county commissions in Kent and Macomb counties, among others, are unfairly drawn. And thanks to the 2019 Supreme Court ruling that greenlighted partisan gerrymandering, Republicans in states like Texas, Georgia, Florida and Ohio were able to take advantage of that and draw maps that really are skewed in favor of their party. 91.1 Flint, PublishedDecember 7, 2022 Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited your! Two different sets of case law on March 26, 2022 if the commission drew unholy alliance many. With us how we can improve engagement in terms of in-person, and then the commission has! Job, but that 's true, if you have to contact us call 1833 you draw make all! From voters throughout the state House Map was the Hickory commission to draw those maps last week York. Was called the unholy alliance in many ways to this site where, for decades, elections were rigged gerrymanders. Enough for Black voters to carry the Day was in the end no Democrat even ran in district! 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That was an awesome experience that the commission engaged in, and instead doing. Census, it 's been a remarkable transformation in a state where, decades! What is fair and to measure fairness in redistricting maps, these are the law of the.!
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