Who gets the pen? Judges weigh who draws new metro Detroit districts as clock ticks.
KALAMAZOO — The federal three-judge panel that ruled unconstitutional more than a dozen Detroit-based state legislative districts floated the possibility at a Friday hearing that a court-appointed special master could draw new districts at the same time Michigan's citizen-led redistricting commission attempts to redraw the lines.
It may be the first time in a redistricting case that a court does not give the state body responsible for drawing district lines exclusively the first opportunity to fix the maps before a court-appointed special master takes up the pen.
Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, a group of metro Detroit voters sued the redistricting commission in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan. They alleged the commission's newly drawn voting districts that run through Detroit illegally disenfranchise Black voters.
In late December, a three-judge panel struck down 13 state legislative maps in Detroit. U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Raymond Kethledge, who wrote the bruising opinion that found race predominated in how the commission drew lines through the majority-Black city, characterized the posture of the group of citizen mappers since the panel's order came down as one of "defiance and disarray."
Michigan redistricting: Commission to appeal ruling against metro Detroit maps
A trio of resignations and a pair of misconduct allegations facing commissioners has plagued the group in recent weeks. Commission infighting prompted lawyers for the plaintiffs to argue in a brief earlier this week that a special master should have "veto" power over the commission.
Kethledge said during the court hearing Friday it would be "foolhardy" for the panel to put its full faith in the commission alone to redraw the maps. Instead, Kethledge proposed a "parallel map drawing" in which the commission would have an opportunity to redraw the invalidated districts while a court-appointed master carried out a separate mapping process, giving the panel two sets of maps to consider.
U.S. District Judge Janet Neff put forward another option: the court would consider adopting the redrawn maps submitted by the redistricting commission if they are legally compliant before turning to look at the maps drawn by a special master.
With the April 23 candidate filing deadline for the August primary election looming, Kethledge said he wants to prevent a "fire drill" at the last minute in the event the commission fails to meet the deadline for drawing new maps or draws maps that don't pass legal muster.
"We don't have time to see if it goes wrong," Kethledge said.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul Maloney said the panel has to have confidence the commission can meet the tight timeline for redrawing districts and pointed to recent discord in the commission as casting doubt the commission is up to the task. Patrick Lewis, a lawyer representing the commission, said that the commission will do everything in its power to meet its mapping deadline.
The redistricting commission awaits the panel's decision about next steps as it pursues an appeal of the ruling against its maps in the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Although we are filing an appeal, we're still going to be aggressively trying to follow through with the court's order," the redistricting commission's Executive Director Edward Woods III told reporters after the court hearing.
Hours before the court hearing Friday, lawyers for the redistricting commission filed a motion asking the court to halt its order barring use of the commission's state legislative maps in this year's elections pending appeal. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Maloney said the panel will reject the request.
Woods said the commission plans to file a motion to stay the lower court's injunction with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Contact Clara Hendrickson: chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, previously called Twitter, @clarajanehen.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 1 way invalidated Detroit districts could be redrawn
