Levin, Peters Slam Republicans for 'Gerrymandered' Plan for New Districts

A Republican proposal for redistricting Michigan's U.S. Congressional districts would have the entire city represented by one congressman rather than two and lumps those current two reps – Democrats Sander Levin and Gary Peters – into one redrawn 9th District. 

The plan released Friday essentially moves Peters of Bloomfield Township into the redrawn district of Royal Oak's Levin, which is mostly Levin's current 12th District of Macomb County with a small portion of Oakland County.

State legislative and U.S. congressional maps have to be redrawn every 10 years to reflect changes and shifts in population found by the U.S. Census. Michigan is losing one seat in Congress, dropping from 15 to 14, because its population fell 0.6 percent since 2010.

Proposed redistricting of Michigan’s legislative and congressional seats will be considered by the Legislature this summer.

Peters and Levin quickly issued a joint statement Friday blasting the Republicans for the most “shamelessly partisan” plan the state has ever seen:

“Instead of drawing fair lines that follow community and county borders in a logical way, the Republican legislature has drafted a map so skewed that it exploits every trick in the book to gerrymander districts in ways that benefit Republican incumbents," the Congressmen's statement said. "The legislature and Governor Snyder should reject this gerrymandered map and draw congressional boundaries in a way that puts Michigan voters’ interests squarely ahead of flagrant partisan advantage."

Republicans control the redrawing of the districts because they hold the majorities in the state Senate, House and Supreme Court. So naturally Democrats were bound to come out with the short stick. House Democrats said they will release their maps Monday. 

Based on the Republican proposal, Peters can:

• decide not to run for re-election
• battle Levin, a 30-year veteran representative
• move into the new 11th District, which contains most of his current district and represented by Republican Thaddeus McCotter of Livonia.

Congress

Now: Residents in Royal Oak are represented by either U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak, in the 12th District or U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, in the 9th District

As proposed: Oakland County would be broken into four congressional districts (8, 9, 11 and 14).

• District 9 would include Royal Oak, Ferndale, Berkley, Huntington Woods and Bloomfield Township.
• District 8 would include Rochester and Rochester Hills and the rest of the northern half of the county (from Oakland and Addison townships west to Holly and Rome townships).
• District 11 would look like almost encircle the southern half of the county and include everything from Clawson and Troy to Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham west to Milford and south to Canton.
• District 14 would include Farmington Hills (but not Farmington — that would be in District 11) as well as West Bloomfield, Pontiac, Southfield and parts of Wayne County.