Detroit Free Press joins other media outlets in lawsuit against redistricting commission
The Detroit Free Press, along with other media organizations, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Michigan's redistricting commission to demand greater transparency from the group responsible for drawing new congressional and legislative districts.
The lawsuit filed by the Detroit News, the Free Press, Bridge Michigan, the Michigan Press Association and the association's public affairs manager, Lisa McGraw, asks the Michigan Supreme Court to require the state's redistricting commission to release a recording of the group's private discussion of voting rights issues with its lawyers and secret memos it weighed while drafting proposed maps.
The organizations also seek to bar the group from meeting behind closed doors in the future.
The Michigan Supreme Court has original jurisdiction to adjudicate disputes regarding the commission's procedures.
The lawsuit argues that the Michigan Constitution "imposes an unambiguous and mandatory legal duty" on the commission to open all its meetings to the public and disclose all materials used to develop the proposed districts.
"I have spent decades fighting for transparency against public bodies, so I'm not easily shocked. But the secretive conduct of the redistricting commission and its lawyers is without precedent," Free Press legal counsel Herschel Fink said.
The commission "has chosen to ignore the will of the citizens of Michigan," Free Press editor and vice president Peter Bhatia said. "It is very clear that the intent was for this body to conduct its responsibilities in the open and with full transparency. The purpose of this suit is to make sure that occurs."
In 2018, 61% of Michigan voters adopted a constitutional amendment that removed redistricting responsibilities from the Legislature and placed them in the hands of a group of randomly selected voters.
But the commission's meeting behind closed doors and decision to keep information hidden from the public violated the transparency requirements laid out in the amendment, the complaint contends.
On Oct. 27, the group held a closed-door meeting with its lawyers to discuss two memos concerning the Voting Rights Act — the federal law prohibiting voting districts that deny minority voters an opportunity to elect their preferred candidates — and the history of discrimination in Michigan.
The commission voted on Dec. 2 not to release the recording of the closed-door session or disclose the memos it discussed, defying bipartisan calls for their release and a legal opinion by Attorney General Dana Nessel. All four Democratic members of the commission voted against releasing the memos and recording while Republican and independent members were divided on the matter.
The group has also withheld at least eight other memos received from its lawyers, including those related to the redistricting criteria the commission's maps must follow.
More: Redistricting commission defies Nessel opinion, decides to keep voting rights memos secret
More: Redistricting commission lawyers advise against releasing secret memos, call it 'unwise'
Attorneys for the commission have vehemently defended the legality of the closed-door session and confidentiality of the memos, citing attorney-client privilege. They have argued that disclosing records from the meeting and other private memos would jeopardize their ability to provide frank legal advice to the commission.
"We are not surprised or distracted by this lawsuit and will continue our mission to draw fair maps through public engagement openly and transparently," the commission wrote in a tweet laying out the group's plan to assert a right to attorney-client privilege in court.
The maps drawn by the state's inaugural commission will determine how Michigan voters are represented in Washington and Lansing for the next decade.
The commission is more than halfway through a 45-day public comment period to solicit input on its proposed maps and plans to meet the last week in December to vote to adopt final U.S. House, Michigan Senate and Michigan House districts.
With only a few weeks left in the comment period, members of the public "have been deprived of the opportunity to assess all of the information" related to the commission's work, the complaint states.
Criticism against the commission has focused on how the proposed maps would affect minority voters' representation. The closed-door session came on the heels of a statewide public hearing tour during which the group was told the voting districts it drafted would disenfranchise Black voters. The group subsequently adjusted its maps, but concerns that the proposed districts would dilute Black voters' representation linger.
The commission's proposed maps would eliminate majority-Black congressional and state Senate districts that run through Detroit and reduce the number of majority-Black state House districts currently in place.
A lawsuit alleging that the commission violated the Voting Rights Act would land the group in federal court to defend its work.
Clara Hendrickson fact-checks Michigan issues and politics as a corps member with Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Make a tax-deductible contribution to support her work at bit.ly/freepRFA. Contact her at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on Twitter @clarajanehen.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Free Press, others sue redistricting commission for records
