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You are here: Home / Uncategorized / PUBLIC COMMENT: BENSON SKIMPS ON DIVERSITY IN HER APPLICATION FORM FOR NEW REDISTRICTING COMMISSION

PUBLIC COMMENT: BENSON SKIMPS ON DIVERSITY IN HER APPLICATION FORM FOR NEW REDISTRICTING COMMISSION

August 6, 2019 by tbreport 5 Comments

It appears the late conservative icon William F. Buckley is about to get validation, from an unexpected source, of one of his most famous “bon mots.”

Buckley said he’d rather be governed by people picked at random from the Boston telephone book than by the Harvard University faculty.

There is good reason to believe Michigan’s new independent commission charged with redistricting Congressional and legislative districts after the 2020 census will be composed of citizens, chosen lottery-style, who won’t meet the criteria promised in Proposal 2 approved by the state’s voters last November.

At least one influential critic claims that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s application form (to be a commissioner) falls far short in seeking demographic information from those who want to serve.

More demographic categories must be added to the application to achieve a redistricting commission that actually mirrors Michigan’s diversity, according to a “public comment” submitted to Benson by longtime attorney/election law guru Bob LaBrant.

 Here are LaBrant’s comments in their entirety:

“The Michigan Independent Redistricting Commission was established when voters adopted Proposal 2 on the November 6, 2018, statewide ballot. The Commission will consist of 13 individuals, who within the last six years have had no partisan governmental or political experience or have any close family relatives who do.

“Those 13 individuals are to be randomly selected by the Secretary of State using “accepted statistical weighting methods to ensure that the three pools (Republican, Democratic and no-party affiliation)  of applicants as closely as possible mirror the geographic and demographic make-up of the state.”

The constitutional amendment does not detail what specific demographic questions will be asked on the application.  The text of the proposed amendment only says the Secretary of State shall make applications available to the general public no later than January 1 of the year of the  federal decennial census (January 1, 2020).

“Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson claims that, under the 2018 amendment, she is not required to ask for public comment on the draft Commissioner application that is posted on her department’s website, but in the interest of transparency she will accept public comment on her proposed Commissioner application until August 9, 2019. 

“Although not specifically addressed in the 2018 constitutional amendment, a case can be made that the Secretary  of State is not exempt in her limited redistricting role, as the Secretary of State, from the  Michigan Administrative Procedures Act (rulemaking, notice, comment, judicial review). Is she suggesting that choosing which demographic characteristic to select or omit from the Commissioner application is subject only to her whim? Hard to believe that, as a former law school dean, Secretary Benson would maintain that the inclusion or exclusion of a question is not subject to judicial review, since the U.S. Supreme Court recently reviewed a legal challenge to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce’s attempt to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census form under the federal Administrative Procedures Act. Her decision in this draft application to prohibit all precinct delegates and their close relatives from submitting Commissioner applications may or may not be correct, but that prohibition should be subject to APA rulemaking.

“The 2018 constitutional amendment says the Commission should be made up of Commissioners who reflect Michigan’s demographic and geographic diversity.

“The 2018 redistricting amendment does not specifically define “demographic.” Absent a definition in the text of the constitution, the Michigan Supreme Court says to look to the term’s ordinary meaning, including its dictionary definition.

“Demographic information refers  to the statistics that describe a population and can be used to divide that population into different groups. Examples of demographic information include age, gender, race, income, marital status, educational attainment and political preference.”

“Secretary Benson’s draft application is extremely thin on questions asking about the demographic characteristics of an applicant — limiting them to just four categories: age,  voting address, gender and race.  These categories are so thin that it fails to meet the constitutional requirement that the Commission “should mirror the geographic and demographic makeup of the state.” 

“The Commissioner application as currently written does not meet the test of ensuring diversity because the draft application fails to ask at all about such demographic characteristics as educational attainment, income, veteran or disability status.

“The demographic questions currently asked in the draft application would permit all 13 Commissioners to be millionaires or, in the other extreme, all 13 Commissioners could have incomes below the poverty level. Without having a question on educational attainment, all 13 Commissioners could have Ph.D.’s or all 13 Commissioners could be high school dropouts.

“Secretary of State Benson should revise her draft Redistricting Commissioner Application. In revising the application, she need not look any farther than the U. S. Census Bureau’s Michigan Electorate Profile and use the same categories found in that profile based upon  the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent American Community Survey. Using those same categories, here is what the Michigan Independent Redistricting Commission would likely look like:

% of the Michigan Electorate

Gender

Male 48.65%                                                               Six Commissioners

Female 51.35%                                                     Seven Commissioners

Voting-age population

18-24 years 18%                                                     Two Commissioners

25-44 years 26.2%                                               Three Commissioners

45-64 years 35.9%                                                  Five Commissioners

65 years and over 19.9%                                   Three Commissioners

Race and Hispanic origin

White 79.3%                                                             Ten Commissioners

Black 13.9%                                                             Two Commissioners

Other                                                                           One Commissioner

Asian 3.1%              

American Indian 1.2%                        

Hispanic 3.9%

Median household income (MHI)  $52,492    

Higher than MHI                                         At least Six Commissioners                             

Lower than MHI                                          At least Six Commissioners

Income below the poverty level 13.3% Two Commissioners

Educational attainment

Bachelor’s degree or higher 28.3%                      Four Commissioners

Less than a college degree 71.7%                        Nine Commissioners                 

Veteran Status 7.2%                                                 One Commissioner

Disability status 14.5%                                           Two Commissioners

Political Party allocation required in the 2018 amendment:

Self-identified Republicans                                      Four Commissioners

Self-identified Democrats                                        Four Commissioners

Self-identified as having no party affiliation        Five Commissioners

Geographical Allocation:

Wayne, Oakland, Macomb Counties                     Five Commissioners

Thumb, Genesee, Saginaw, Bay,

and surrounding counties                                    Two Commissioners

West Michigan-Grand Rapids, Muskegon,

Holland, Kalamazoo, Benton Harbor, etc.      Three Commissioners

Mid-Michigan- Ann Arbor, Brighton,                      Two Commissioners

Lansing, Battle Creek,                                                                      Mt. Pleasant, Jackson, Monroe                        

Northern Lower Michigan & the U.P.                        One Commissioner 

“Modeling the Commissioner application to reflect the same categories  found in the U.S. Census Bureau’s Michigan Electorate Profile would ensure a Commission that is a true reflection of Michigan’s diverse population.

“The two optional questions included in the draft application (1) Why you politically identify with a party or do not?, and (2) Why you want to serve on the Commission?) are unfortunately irrelevant because those subjective personal “essays” have no constitutional basis in a strictly random selection process. The only rationale offered for these two essays is to give the four legislative leaders something to consider when each leader gets to blackball up to five semi-finalists out of a field of 200 applicants who have survived the statistically weighted random draw.

“We need to remember that, unlike the California Independent Redistricting Commission, the 2018  Michigan redistricting amendment (Proposal 2) does NOT require anyone to have experience, training, education, specialized skills or expertise. Selection as a Commissioner is based entirely on an applicant’s geographic residence and the demographic characteristics they possess.

“Under the 2018 redistricting amendment, an applicant does not ever have a face-to-face job interview. This is in sharp contrast with a thorough personal interview process that Independent Redistricting Commissioner applicants have in California, but that was the choice of the drafters of (Michigan’s) Proposal 2 to make Commissioner selection purely random.

“The draft application DOES make a non-binding attempt to get applicants to pledge in their application (1 e. and 1 f.) that he or she will, if selected, act impartially, with integrity, and will work collaboratively with their fellow Commissioners to reach a consensus. Again, there is no constitutional basis for those non-binding pledges in the application, and they should be deleted in favor of adding more demographic categories to the application.”

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Filed Under: Uncategorized

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Damon Lieurance says

    August 7, 2019 at 7:02 am

    Very interesting. I hope our AG can set aside her activist agenda long enough to seat a fair election commission. I think this will be a mess.

    Reply
    • J.Dallas Winegarden Jr says

      August 7, 2019 at 5:20 pm

      Another Egg Head Who Probably was turned down for
      Admission at Harvard!
      Hello Dumbo – Jurors take an oath to
      Be Fair and Impartial ! this guy must be on Trumps/GOP
      Short List!

      Reply
  2. Eric Petersen says

    August 7, 2019 at 2:57 pm

    So did you really expect a Democrat to get it right?

    Reply
  3. Ed Haynor says

    August 7, 2019 at 4:37 pm

    A draft application process, is what it is, a draft. Republicans need not get so hot and bothered.

    Reply
  4. Matt Crehan says

    August 8, 2019 at 1:02 am

    At the present time, when the final choices are made, this group would resemble the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Amos-n-Andy, Rodney Dangerfield, Todd Courser, Cindy Gamrat, and David Jaye. There will be absolutely no effort made to ensure any type of impartial commission, but through illusions and slight of hand, it will develop a solidly Democrat map for the next decade. That will only happen if the entire proposal, or substantive parts of it, are not struck down by the court(s). And there certainly will be not a shred of doubt that whoever fails to prevail in the initial court case will appeal it. So the decision on what this commission may finally resemble will ultimately be made by SCOTUS, if it decides to accept the case.

    This proposal was a Democrat ploy from the start. Only a few mushy moderate Republicans (a/k/a RINO’s) signed on to it. The entire concept was a phony bill of goods sold to the gullible under the guise of good government.

    Reply

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