Redistricting commission selects a proposed Senate map on 6th round of voting

The Crane A1 map of new metro Detroit state Senate districrts | MICRC map

A proposed new map for a half-dozen state Senate districts is on its way to a federal court for approval after a preliminary thumbs up Wednesday from Michigan’s redistricting panel.

The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) redrew the metro Detroit districts after it was ordered to do so by a federal court late last year, which ruled 13 state House and Senate maps were drawn unconstitutionally and improperly reduced Black voting percentages.

The new Senate map, called Crane A1, was the result of work begun by the 13-member  commission in April, including six public input hearings that concluded earlier this month, and then three days of deliberations this week, which ended Wednesday with the selection. However, that was no easy task as five rounds of voting failed to get enough members to vote in favor of the dozen possible map proposals. The Crane A1 map was finally selected after a ranked-choice round in which each commissioner ranked the maps in order of preference.

Here’s where the redistricting process stands for metro Detroit Senate districts

“I felt strongly that Crane A1 did answer the requirements that we needed to follow and what the court had ordered,” said Commissioner Cynthia Orton, who affiliates as a Republican. “I’m glad everyone was able to vote their conscience, vote what they felt was best.”

The commission’s four Democratic members were less enthusiastic, with only Commissioner Juanita Curry selecting Crane A1. But that was enough to put it over the top.

Commission Vice Chair Brittni Kellom, also a Democrat, said she voted against the map as it didn’t perform as well as it should have on the metrics that the federal court gave them.

“There were deep and varying opinions and perspectives as to what members of the public were expressing when they were talking about their choices and things that they were noticing about; different neighborhoods, different maps, the way that the lines were drawn,” she said. “It was just very simple to me, not just in terms of communities of interest, which is very highly ranked, but also with math metrics and the data that we received and Crane consistently performed at the bottom half.”

Kellom felt that after five rounds of voting, Crane A1 represented a compromise, something she called “the map of least resistance.”

Jaime Lyons-Eddy, the executive director of

Voters Not Politicians, the organization that spearheaded Proposal 2 that passed in 2018 and created the MICRC, agreed the map was not what they had hoped for, but said it still represented a positive step forward for election fairness in Michigan.

“The Crane A1 map, which was not among the maps with the best partisan fairness measures, also represents a missed opportunity to improve upon the partisan fairness of the 2022 Linden map,” said Eddy. “However, it is considerably less biased than the worst-performing maps under consideration. Importantly, supporters of independent redistricting can still take heart that these maps are the product of an independent, transparent process, and were not drawn in secret by and for politicians.”

Partisan fairness scores for the proposed map indicate Democratic candidates would have an average winning margin of approximately 63.6%, which could potentially give Democrats a 21-17 advantage in the state Senate. They currently hold a 20-18 majority. 

The caveat is that the map also pits Democratic incumbents against each other, including Sens Paul Wojno (D-Warren) and Veronica Klinefelt (D-Eastpointe).

However, the map will need to get approval from the federal court first, which is expected by July 26. If it doesn’t, the judicial panel could then turn to a court-appointed mapmaker to finalize the district boundaries that will be in play for the 2026 election.

The MICRC successfully redrew seven new House districts in March, in time for elections later this year.

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