Nearly a decade after Republicans redrew Michigan’s political districts, a federal lawsuit is set for trial Feb. 5 to determine if they were illegally gerrymandered.
Just one hiccup. The new defendant in the case – the one responsible for arguing that the districts are constitutional – is one of the biggest critics of the state’s legislative boundaries, and helped lead the fight against Republican redistricting in 2011.
When Democrat Jocelyn Benson was sworn in as Michigan’s secretary of state on Jan. 1, she inherited an ongoing lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters that seeks to redraw the state’s 14 congressional districts and more than 30 state Senate districts before the 2020 election.