2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Michigan

[Skill and Chance]

A 6th Circuit panel just unanimously upheld Michigan's redistricting commission against a federal constitutional challenge.  The panel was 1 Trump appointee and 2 Clinton appointees.  The Trump appointee wrote a concurrence that seemed to grant even stronger deference to Michigan and cited Roberts' comments from Rucho that seemed to bless state commissions.

I think the commission is safely in place going forward.

[Skill and Chance]

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/ICRC_Whos_applying_682238_7.pdf

just interesting stats
So the commission applicants are a decent bit whiter, they are also 60% male, and also much older than the average Michigan voter, but however 35% are Democrat to 15% Republican, doesn't really matter .

So it's going to be a commission of former Woodstock attendees?

[Skill and Chance]

The same Obama era status quo bias that helped Republicans in CO and will likely help them in VA should help Democrats in MI. There's going to be a lot of pressure for Dems to have a majority of the delegation.  You could see a similar thing in court in PA.

[Skill and Chance]

https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00/status/1489388862174601219?s=20&t=Zcm5GPJQ...

The legislative suit, alleging that the commissions RPV analysts had it wrong and African American seats need to by >50% by VAP, is over. One D judge dissented, one R concurred with the three other majority Ds. There remains a GOP OMOV suit on the congressional map.

This was not a party-line decision, even though the court is currently  4D/3R.  One Republican voted to  uphold the map and one Democrat voted to strike it down.

[Skill and Chance]

Interesting to see if this succeeds.

I really do not like the way the Commission tried to "unpack" black voters - however a very good handful of said seats failed in 2022. The commission argues it's what their VRA lawyers told them to do, but there def seemed to be some level of underlying partisan incentives.

The thing is in MI, you don't even have to excessively "unpack" black voters to make a partisan equitable map so that argument is weak as well. A lot of the map just "unpacks" black voters into already D-leaning suburbs.

Really hope these issues are fixed.

Yes, I think to be consistent with the principles laid out in the AL, LA, and now GA section 2 cases, the MI state senate map has to go.