by Scott McClallen
Former Michigan Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman urged Michigan’s independent redistricting committee to use geographical boundaries instead of racial, ethnic, or religious groups to determine the state’s new voting boundaries.
Markman took to the Wall Street Journal opinion page June 25 to air his concerns.
Markman, who retired from the Michigan Supreme Court in 2020, supports drawing boundaries via neighborhoods, instead of “communities of interest,” such as shared concerns for which a University of Michigan report advocated.
The commission that will determine how to divide districts has 13 members — four Democrats, four Republicans, and five independents — randomly selected from an applicant pool of registered voters.
The UM report prepared with the assistance and oversight of Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson recommends creating communities of interest based on whether they are “linked to public policy issues that are affected by legislation” or “concerned about environmental hazards.”
This idea contradicts previous metrics of redistricting by physical community boundaries.
Thomas Ivacko, executive director for UM’s Center for Local, State and Urban Policy, said 61% of Michigan’s voters decided to prioritize “communities of interest” via the constitutional amendment passed in 2018.
Ivacko said redistricting is a complex issue with space for “many competing points of view” but called Markman’s critique “off-target.”
“We did not propose these changes,” Ivacko told The Center Square in an email. “In fact, our report was not intended to address these kinds of tradeoffs in redistricting, or to address other of the myriad aspects of redistricting. It was intended only to address the new citizen-approved aspect that does prioritize communities of interest as key building blocks.”
The Department of State included Ivacko’s report in background material for redistricting commissioners.
The UM report recommends ignoring “the most genuine communities of interest”— community neighborhoods, Markman wrote.
Instead, Markman submitted his report to the redistricting committee, commissioned by Hillsdale College, where he teaches Constitutional Law.
“The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission can do the public a great service by uniting behind an electoral map that curtails gerrymandering, partisanship and self-dealing,” Markman wrote. “Or it can continue these same abuses, albeit in a camouflaged manner, by transforming the people of Michigan’s towns, cities and townships into a mere assemblage of favored and disfavored interest, identity and affinity groupings.
On Monday, Markman told West Michigan Live host Justin Barclay his recommendations urge commissioners to adopt “more traditional theories” prioritizing geographical boundaries over racial or ethnic groups.
“Our state Constitution has never identified those bases before,” Markman said. “The new amendment doesn’t identify race, ethnicity, and religion. This is a kind of made-up term to describe the identity groups that the university and the secretary of state want to establish as the new foundation of our electoral system.”
In a phone interview with The Center Square, Markman questioned who decides the priority of “identity groups” in district-drawing, saying many of them are effectively “proxies for more explicit partisan considerations.”
Markman said the 2.5 million Michigan voters who approved Proposal 2 wanted district-drawing reform: less gerrymandering, less self-interested political dealing, and less partisanship.
But under the UM recommendation, “They’d get none of those things, and in the process, there would be a system in which this new commission will be making countless decisions concerning the nature of communities that are just beyond its expertise,” he said.
The former justice contends the commission would be responsible for projecting communities’ future expectations, common and invisible bonds shared with neighboring communities, and interest in certain legislation— “all kinds of sociological questions that I think are just not the kind of issues that are likely to be decided by a citizen’s commission, basically put together by pulling names out of a hat.”
Markman said Hillsdale’s recommendation would treat every citizen as an equal member of a geographic community of interest where his or her home and family and friends and neighbors are located.
“Just being involved in this decision-making process of having to decide which interest groups and which identity groups, which ethnic, racial, and religious groups are going to be given ‘community of interest’ status is a divisive and a polarizing decision,” Markman said.
Markman said politicians had abused district-drawing via gerrymandering, but emphasized all systems are susceptible to abuse if the right people aren’t making the decisions.
“We’re not looking for a perfect system,” Markman said. “But we are looking for a better system.”
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Scott McClallen is a staff writer covering Michigan and Minnesota for The Center Square. A graduate of Hillsdale College, his work has appeared on Forbes.com and FEE.org.
