DETROIT — A federal three-judge panel on Friday dismissed part of a lawsuit brought by several Michigan Republicans in an effort to overturn the congressional voting district map drawn and adopted by the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission.
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Raymond Kethledge wrote that the plaintiffs' claims of unfair communities of interest in the new map is simply "a political-gerrymandering claim by another name" and not under the purview of the court.
"The term’s vagueness affords the commission broad discretion to define the term however it likes," Kethledge wrote of the Michigan Constitution's inclusion of "communities of interest."
Citizens come up to speak during the public comment portion of the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission meeting in Lansing on Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021.
Kethledge was appointed to the case as one of a three-judge panel that included federal district judges Janet Neff and Paul Maloney. All three judges are appointees of Republican former President George W. Bush.
While the panel unanimously dismissed the claim related to "communities of interest," the judges allowed a separate claim to continue alleging violation of the U.S. Constitution's "one person, one vote" principle requiring equal population in congressional districts.
The suit at issue was filed by 10 Michigan Republicans in January. It asked the federal court to overturn the newly adopted congressional district map on the grounds that the map was drawn to fragment communities of interest unfairly and unnecessarily. The plaintiffs argued the maps could be drawn more fairly and in compliance with communities of interest criteria if they left more counties intact.
Consideration of county, city and township boundaries is listed second to last in the Michigan Constitution in the order of priorities commissioners must follow — after considerations such as districts reflecting equal population, geographic contiguity and communities of interest.
The suit also challenged the commission's compliance with equal population criteria, noting two of the districts either overshoot or undershoot the 775,179-person limit per district by 487 and 635 people.
In Friday's decision, Kethledge wrote that the U.S. Constitution allows states to fragment voter communities of interest and has no clear guidance about when that fragmentation "has gone too far."
Federal appeals court Judge Raymond Kethledge of Michigan was appointed by Republican former President George W. Bush.
While the term "communities of interest" is vague, it clearly doesn't include counties as the plaintiffs argued because counties are listed in a separate criterion in the state constitution, Kethledge wrote. The plaintiffs' arguments appear to want to keep counties whole to protect communities of similar political interests, he said.
"Defining such communities is no business of the courts," Kethledge wrote. "Nor does the federal Constitution afford us any basis to review the commission's trade-offs between 'communities of interest' and the other districting criteria enumerated under Michigan law.
"Trade-offs among legitimate interests involve legislative judgements, not judicial ones," he said.
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