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A growing bipartisan chorus is urging the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission to release the transcript for discussions held during a closed door meeting in late October. The panel met with lawyers in response to a state civil rights department opinion that said the preliminary draft the group has been working on disenfranchised minority voters. The commission is attempting to make state and federal races more competitive, but to do so it carved up mostly minority cities like Detroit and Flint and forced neighborhoods to be lumped in with surrounding suburbs, which have different demographics.
State Representative Greg Markkanen agrees with his colleagues, and Attorney General Dana Nessel, that the meeting was improper.
This is one of many problems that have cropped up in conjunction with the new redistricting format. The State Constitution mandates that borders be finalized by November, a deadline that the group has missed dramatically. Their task was made more difficult when the United States Census delayed the release of its results until September.
Markkanen says that theoretically the group should be okay as long as the districts are done by April, when candidates are required to file. Further court challenges are almost certainly looming in the future, which makes it unclear if that date is attainable.
