 Good afternoon and welcome to the Ford School. I'm Tom Ivaco. I'm interim director of the Center for local state and urban policy Can you hear me in back? Okay? I'm interim director of close-up Center for local state and urban policy and it's my pleasure to kick off today's discussion I'd like to start by thanking our co-sponsors The event is sponsored jointly by close-up and by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy As part of the school's policy talks series It's also co-sponsored by the school's program in practical policy engagement the student group domestic policy course the university's Ginsburg Center for community service and learning As well as by Detroit Public Television, which is live streaming the event online and By voters not politicians and we're grateful for all of their support At the end of the panel discussion, we'll have about 15 to 20 minutes for questions from the audience So please write your questions on the index cards that were handed out and if you need another one just flag down a staff member We'll start to collect those around 430 or so and we'll continue as the discussion continues For those of you joining us online, please tweet your questions using the hashtag policy talks We will collect those and add them to the list generated here So the topic of today's discussion Communities of interest and Michigan's new approach to redistricting through an independent citizens commission is a particularly important issue it's one that has the potential for far-reaching and long-lasting impacts on the state of Michigan and because of that tied to the event today close-up has also launched a research and service project We're working with the Michigan Secretary of State's office to advise the independent citizens Redistricting Commission when it's seated about communities of interest We've worked closely with the Department of State and Sally Marsh who I think is here or will join us soon Has been a terrific partner on that. We're very grateful to the Secretary of State To Sally Marsh and to their office for partnering with us on this project The project is being conducted by a team of very talented Ford School students Under the direction of John Chamberlain who is professor emeritus here in the school And so joining us today to present your questions to the panelists are some of the Ford School students on that team first Sophia merchants and Nick nager They're being assisted with question sorting by Sarah Gruen and Alyssa graph and Professor Chamberlain we we appreciate all of your help. Thank you I'd also like to thank Bonnie Roberts close-ups events manager for pulling this all together. There's always a great job Bonnie. Thank you So let's turn to the event. We have an outstanding panel of speakers today beginning with opening remarks or remarks when she gets her I think Actually, just about perfect timing We can welcome Michigan Secretary of State Inventing you can have a seat So yes, we'll we'll have opening remarks by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in a few moments But first I'm going to simply introduce our moderator and she will introduce the panelists and really kick off the discussion So our moderator today is Nancy Wang a founding member and executive director of voters not politicians the impressive grassroots organization that led the 2018 campaign to pass a constitutional amendment to End partisan gerrymandering in Michigan truly remarkable accomplishment Nancy led the policy committee that wrote the constitutional amendment language with significant input from the public And she served as president of the voters not politicians board of directors during that campaign Prior to that Nancy had an accomplished career as an educator and an attorney and she served as the director of the university's environmental law clinic She also has played the key role in assembling this terrific panel for us today, and we're grateful for all that work Thank you Nancy And so with that brief introduction, please join me in welcoming our moderator Nancy Wang Hi, thank you so much for being here I see a lot of friendly faces out in the audience including a lot of voters not politicians volunteers It's so great to see everyone And we really do have an all-star panel here today, and I'm just I'm thrilled for the the conversation That's that's going to be before us Thank you to Tom and to Bonnie for hosting us today and for the Ford School for having us and Detroit Public Television for Broadcasting this live 2018 was a historic election for lots of reasons One big one was two and a half million citizens across the state of Michigan from all political parties All across the state voted in favor of proposal two to take politicians out of our redistricting process to make Michigan's days as one of the most gerrymandered in the entire country No more and to put in its place a new citizen led process That and to make unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering where politicians were drawing maps that split up our communities to give themselves safe districts We look forward to a citizen's commission that is forming now And whose job it is will be to draw fair maps that don't favor one political party or one candidate over another And to draw maps that reflect and respect our communities of interest here in our state Now the communities of interest concept Is core and it's really central to our new citizen led redistricting process, but what exactly does that mean? Why do we care about communities of interest? Why do we put them at the center of our election district maps? And how how is the citizen's commission going to really do that? How will it know where our communities are? And what can we expect our maps to look like once this Next redistricting cycle is done So what will our 2022 maps look like which will be the first elections where the commissioned on maps will be in effect And when will all this happen? What's the timetable and how can you be a part of it? Those are all quest questions that we'll be posing on to our expert panel today We'll have them walk us through Michigan's new redistricting process and they'll explain how this will work in real life what we can learn from California citizen led process that they underwent in 2011 and I'm here to introduce and thanks so much our panelists secretary Benson Secretary Benson is Michigan's 43rd Secretary of State and author of state secretaries of state guardians of the democratic process She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and an expert on civil rights law education law and election law Secretary Benson serves as served as the Dean of Wayne State Law School and When she was appointed Dean at the age of 36 she became the youngest woman in US history to lead a top 10 accredited law school Under our constitutional amendment the secretary of state's office is in charge of administering the application process for People who will be applying to serve on the commission that means that her office is in charge of making applications available She opened the application process On October 24th recently and by all accounts It's been very very well received and there's been a ton of public interest and a lot of applications have already been submitted Which we are just thrilled about And we will also thrilled that she really is leading this application process in a way that's inclusive and transparent and Really is presenting this opportunity out to all Michiganders Next we have to my left Connie Maloy. She is a California commissioner from the 2011 redistricting cycle and its current chair She serves as director Excuse me executive director of the Panta Rhea Foundation a private foundation devoted to building a just and sustainable world The foundation advisors and partners with individual donors and other charitable entities on grant-making strategies She previously served as a portfolio director of the James Irvine Foundation's Los Angeles office And I'm really excited to have Connie's firsthand account of how the California commissioner How the California Commission took in all the public input from across the state of California and really made decisions You know balancing between you know different voices and sometimes conflicting opinions about where communities lay and Then to her left we have Chris Thomas Chris Thomas is a he retired from the Michigan Department of State on June 30th 2017 after 40 years of election administrative service Which included 36 years as Michigan's director of elections I'm really excited to have Chris Thomas here to talk about what communities of interest we have what the lay of the land is here in Michigan and Finally last not least we have Chris Lamar who is traveling from Washington, DC Chris is the legal counsel for redistricting with Campaign Legal Center a non-partisan non-profit organization Dedicated to protecting and strengthening the democratic process all across all levels of government Chris works on redistricting policy and litigation his portfolio includes creating and protecting independent redistricting commissions all across the country I'd like to invite Secretary Benson to please deliver opening remarks Thank You Nancy It's really exciting to be here with all of you today in this capacity as your Secretary of State, but also as the the individual charged with in a ministerial way administering the Commission in particular the selection of the Commission and so I want to talk a little bit about what we're doing there But of course, I also want to thank our fund my fellow panelists as well and everyone here I'm I come at this office as many of you know not as a politician, but as a academic I Focus on best practices and also data and making solution oriented Taking a solution oriented approach to things but also Ensuring that we are preserving everything that we do for future decades in which the citizens redistricting Commission will move forward, but in the midst of all that I Is has been reflected in many other areas of my office. I know as an academic The best way to approach something is to collect data and best practices and make informed decisions based on that And so what the panelists here today reflect are a lot of the Experts who we've consulted with as we've worked to develop a citizen redistricting process that is independent citizen led and transparent and And so I'm grateful for the expertise of those who are here with us today who care about these issues Sincerely and have been helping advise our office as others have been as well as to how we can Factor all perspective all perspectives into the equation as you make decisions of the administration of this Commission and before this panel dives into the concept of communities of interest and Takes into consideration some of the issues that the citizen commissioners ultimately will have to weigh I want to take a moment to talk about the big picture and the importance of this moment that We are very much as well as much as we and many may celebrate The successes of the effort that amended our state constitution to give citizens the power to draw district lines Which is something that I as a private citizen advocated for for over a decade has as a as exciting It is to see that vision come to fruition. This is not the time to take a victory lap This is the time to dig in and continue and really get to work at ensuring that this commission That's millions of citizens envisioned and made a reality is a success and we define success in our office as As ensuring the process itself is truly citizen-led is truly independent and nonpartisan and it is Transparent at every step of the way and so those three pillars have defined our approach to this In addition to wanting to collect and talk to stakeholders and experts from around the state and around the country of varying Perspectives to ensure everyone is engaged So I'm also going to talk about how everyone here today and everyone watching at home Can get involved in this historic moment because it truly is a historic moment in our democracy for this state and for this country The the fact is that Michigan is really the only only the second state of it in the country to take on something like this where citizens are empowered and selected in the way that they are in this process to draw the congressional state and state legislative and state Senate district lines for years to come and in our view This precedent and the work that we do over the next two years To create the citizens or district in commission and see to it that it's successful Will really determine the success of future commissions not just in Michigan, but around the country I highly suspect though Michigan is the second state to take something like this on in this way It it will not and should not be the last and so everything we do we recognize also as a Midwest state as a purple state Reflects what can happen and come to fruition in other states as well so recognizing that Citizens have a historic role to play in ensuring the commission's success and being a part of this first of its kind Opportunity for Michigan voters to redraw electoral maps and create fair and impartial districts for everyone in our state As we announced last month and as Nancy mentioned We did announce last month the redistricting or the application process and I'll talk a little bit about that But I want to emphasize everyone can go to redistricting michigan org that is our web portal our home online for you to get all the information about the process and See everything from public comment on the application Access the application itself and track the data as we make it available throughout the next few years Or really throughout the next year until the commission is seated a year from now I will note that we are in phase one of a three phase process that we see The phase phase one of the process is applications Everyone right now around the state is invited to apply to be one of those randomly selected to serve on the 13 member Commission The selection process will happen next June, which is the beginning of phase two But what that means is that you have and from now until June 1st of next year to apply Plenty of time all the time in the world, but still a finite amount of time To to put your name in the hat to be selected And what we've seen it was October 24th that this was launched within the first hour of us announcing that these applications were available 100 people applied by the end of the day a thousand people had applied We're now close to having several thousand people apply and that is you know compared to California, which has four times our population It's very likely that we will eclipse the number of applications that California received in its process So that's great But as I've been saying to every audience as my team and I have been going around the state That really truly what our bar in metrics of success is is everyone feel they deserve to have a seat at the table Does everyone know that no former formal education or former experience is required to Entitle you to have a seat and as a part of the Commission The only thing we ask is that you're a registered voter who's essentially not a politician or a lobbyist Otherwise eligible to be a part of this process and and a willingness to serve And so through that we've seen a number of citizens step up And we hope every single one of you in this room tonight who's eligible to apply will do so And we have plenty of resources on hand to walk you through it But redistricting michigan org is again a way at any time you can access the application and encourage others to do so as well So this commission will be seated a year from now in the fall of 2020 There's not much else going on in the fall of 2020. So there'll be lots of time to focus on this Phase one of this of the process right now as I mentioned is the application process So go to redistricting michigan org to apply and encourage everyone you know to apply as well Phase two begins in June of next year in June of 2020 Applications will close and there will be a random selection process I should also mention before we get to phase two that another aspect There's two other aspects of phase one that are worth mentioning number one We will continue to post data of those who are applying through this process through on our website Once we have some statistically significant data to post so that you can see where what communities are applying What perspectives are at the table and any? Any work that we need to do to lean into some communities or geographic locations that may need a little bit more attention and encouragement to apply So again transparency that'll be online And the second thing we're doing and this is required in the constitutional amendment is proactively mailing applications invitations to apply to a number of thousands. I'll just say thousands of Residents of eligible residents throughout the state That is going to be a random selection from the qualified voter file of about 250,000 quarter of a million people will receive a mailing That random selection is happening tomorrow It's going to be face live streamed on Facebook live face live. I don't know Facebook live streamed And again redistricting Michigan org has all those details But again just as another reflection of the work We're doing not just to live up to the will of the voters and expectations of all of you who work so hard to make This a reality. We will continue to be proactive in reaching people and encouraging them to be a part of this process and assuring Them that they do indeed have a seat at this table phase 2 Begins like I said next June at that point applications will close 200 semi-finalists Will be will be randomly selected with the statistical waiting for geographic and demographic Representation as required by the amendment those 200 semi-finalists will be posted online their basic information You know contact information. I think will be retracted But just basic information will be posted online again transparency and those 200 names will also be submitted to the state Legislature at which point the four quadrant leaders the speaker of the house the Head of the state Senate and the minority leader of both parties will each have an opportunity to veto five For a total of 20 vetoes of people who they feel just shouldn't be selected in the final pool That's the only qualitative check on the process after that the remaining 180 go back into a random lottery selection process and out of that Four Republicans four Democrats and five Unaffiliated voters will be selected and they will comprise the Commission the Commission will be seated next fall If you or anyone else is selected or anyone we know 13 will be selected to serve on the Commission Approximately $40,000 in compensation for your time the Commission once seated will have one year from next fall To draw the maps that will be the next congressional state legislative and state Senate districts for the entire state during that year, which is phase three it is Probably more critical citizen engagement is probably more critical for that phase than for me any other phase as much as we Want everyone to apply the need for citizens to be engaged and involved in defining communities of interest Which we're going to talk about and other aspects of what they want their districts to look like is critical We don't want a scenario where we go through all this to have citizens in charge and then lobbyists and Political parties are the only ones who are coming to this Commission with suggested maps. We want citizens to be Around the states drawing their maps submitting maps be them statewide or local To the Commission for consideration and the Commission is going to be required to hold 15 public hearings around the state That's also in the constitutional language, but in doing so our town halls in doing so We hope that is just the bare minimum of work that we all will do to engage citizens in the map drawing Part of this process. So again, we'll have one year for the Commission will be in engaging citizens throughout the state in listening and hearing and and ultimately agreeing and accepting maps for Congress State Senate and the State House Those maps will go into law on November 1st 2021 and the 2022 election will be the first of a decade's worth of elections where those maps will be in place So that's the entire process as you see in my view It is critical that citizens are engaged as frankly watchdogs But also engage citizens at every step of the process with also the knowledge that everything we do Over these three phases for the next two years will not just impact the districts for the next decade But they will determine the process and the precedent that goes into our state for decades to come And will also influence the development of similar citizens or districting efforts in neighboring and other states So the stakes are high We're ready to meet them and to meet the expectation of all of you who want to ensure this is a success And one of the ways that I think it will be a success again Is if all of you here engage apply tell your friends and family and neighbors about this opportunity as well and stay engaged Throughout this process because this truly is your opportunity to influence and draw Michigan's future so with that Nancy are you coming back up? So thank you all and Thanks for being a part of this This is beyond exciting to see all of us be coming to life So the reason we're talking about communities of interest is because under the constitutional amendment like I said this commission has certain rules Very strict rules that are written in the Constitution now that it must follow when it's drawing our election district maps The last thing we want is another system like what we had before Where a different set of people can you know go in behind closed doors and draw maps for political gain to you know For a party or a candidate right so there are these specified criteria That are in the Constitution First and foremost all maps drawn by the Commission or adopted by the Commission have to comply with all federal laws So that means the federal Constitution one person one vote. It means the voting rights Act And then also all maps all districts have to be contiguous right so they have to be one connected Shape so you can't have you know one district where it has like one little island over here and then another here So that's like common sense and then number three is communities of interest so we really elevated the Importance of communities in the redistricting process in our state and the reason for that is something I'd like to discuss with you All but first Chris Lamar. Do you mind just describing for us? What what does community of interest mean and is that a novel or radical concept? Yeah, sure So well first of all, I want to back up for a second Secretary Benson I just want to challenge you really quickly about not doing a victory laugh while that's true Like I mean just looking at this room Like I've been in other states like this room is amazing But having said that so I mean I've worked on as kind of was mentioned earlier in my introduction I work on creating protecting and implementing Communities of interest or I'm sorry independent redistricting commissions across the country And so I can tell you right now that the idea of a communities of interest like while it sounds nebulous is like actually not a rare thing 24 states consider communities of interest in various aspects Some consider it only for legislative redistricting purposes some for only for congressional purposes others within statutes Some within the constitutional amendments like in Michigan in this case So communities of interest is by itself. Although it sounds like this new idea Actually, is it the other thing that's more that's also important to know is the way that communities of interest have been defined Communities of interest generally include racial social economic considerations You know, there's there's one of my favorite or like one of the things I loved about the California Commission Is that they talked about communities of interest based on sort of like what people did in that district? So if there's a district that had a lot of forest fires and like people fished a lot And they did a lot of outdoors activities and their economic activity was based on the things that they did sort of Socially and economically that was a way to define a community of interest Had one more thought but now it just escaped me I mean, I would I would say that but I mean the other point is that so Michigan defines a says in this in its constitutional amendment that The map criteria shall reflect the diversity of the state and communities of interest Most importantly for the purposes of you know, avoiding partisan gerrymandering It says that communities of interest do not include relationships to political parties or to incumbents and and that's very important to me I've we've I've seen a sort of Examples in other Commissions where you will see voters say that like their community is the politician when like that's not true, right? Like the community is like this is people you go to the grocery shop with the people you work with the people that you know Your kids go to school what that's different than Just who you send it to your state capital or who you send to the nation's capital. So Anyone have anything else to add to that Connie? I'd like to ask you about how California defines community of communities of interest and what parallels you see between the Michigan language and California's Sure so in California, we had a similar approach Which is that a community of interest needed to be contiguous so that big word that just means they need to physically be connected to each Other that shared common social or economic interests, and I really want to underscore if nothing else today For you to all know that you as Michiganders are the ones who are the experts in communities of interest As a commissioner I was given census data to work with and so census data is a really critical input into this process Because you need to know how many people you have if you hope to arrive at what does one person one vote actually look like in practice? You also get some basic demographic data, but there's so much the census does not tell you about a community It doesn't give you any information about the economy or about the geography or the history of a place And that is something where the testimony from the public and your lived experiences is really critical to be able to inform How the Commission takes these these dry kind of numbers and statistics from the census and makes it come alive Into a set of fair maps that make sense for the community No matter how Representative of set of commissioners that you might have around the table There's just no way in a limited set of individuals that you're going to be able to think that all of the various Perspectives of communities of interest are going to be represented in that panel and so I think it's a great Opportunity for us all to be engaged in our democracy and being helped provide our appointed officials with the information They need to be able to do their jobs. Well the Commission success it really depends on Each of you weighing in and on the Commission's ability to listen to what you say and translate that into fair maps I mean as one example when I was in middle school, I lived in Lansing and You know, I could just sit in California with the census data And I could try and draw some district maps for Lansing But I know it's hard to believe a few years have passed since I was in middle school and That community may have changed since that the things I remember about the neighborhood and my neighbors and All of that it has evolved and so it's just common sense to think that the district should evolve as well And that each of the people who live there should have a say in what that should look like So I remember we you know us getting a lot of questions during the prop 2 campaign about What we had then and what we were proposing now and so Chris Thomas, I'd like to ask your opinion as to Well first do you mind explaining for the audience what the APOL standards were and how our maps were supposed to have been drawn Prior to the passage of prop 2 in 2018 certainly and again, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much APOL standard is not an acronym. It's Bernie APOL's last name And Bernie APOL used to be the director of elections commonly known as Mr. Elections in Michigan So you have to go back a ways Michigan in its 63 Constitution Provided for a bipartisan no Independence or not affiliated but a bipartisan Legislative apportionment Commission for Republicans for Democrats they drew a lot of plans, but they never agreed on a single one 64 72 and 80 82 They never never came together and so it always ended up in the Michigan Supreme Court So in 72 the Democrats I believe put two plans forward and the Republicans one and the Democrats went after Sort of a zero deviation so that every district would be Is nearly equal in population which is not all that necessary in the legislative apportionment and Of and the the Court picked that plan and That plan like sliced and diced communities where it went in to grab population to Bring another district to a zero deviation and there was probably some political Considerations as well when they sliced and diced which made The election process very difficult We try to have precincts back then in particular that were Not split between districts so in other words a precinct doesn't have two different state house districts in it Because things get complicated people are given the wrong ballot and it gets very messy So it's not surprising in 1982 When mr. Apo had retired a couple years prior to that that he was called upon to be the master by the Michigan Supreme Court to assist in drawing the plans that year the court had decided they had enough of the Partisan of playing that role so they pretty much ended that process that Commission That was their last go-around so the Apo standards which were likely authored by Justice Levin Charles Levin and and Bernie Looked at Jurisdictional lines so after you did the federal population and the voting rights act and contiguity you then drew a plan that split the fewest number of county lines and Then within those counties Split the fewest number of city and township lines. It sounded very neutral There's some consideration that it really didn't turn out to be that neutral in a partisan sense So that's what was used in 82 and then it went forward from there in a different iterations It was put into state law used in 99 or is put in a 99 used in the 2001 2002 process by 2011 the courts had well you one legislature can't bind a future legislature So while they did adhere to it They clearly weren't bound and they didn't directly adhere to every single piece of it. So That's what the limbo. That's where it was left And so it was nice from an election administration viewpoint that communities were not chopped up but as I've been told through my entire career by lawyers and judges and attorney generals is That an election officials administrative convenience does not have a high priority So I can see how you know political boundaries a poll standards had a certain appeal Can we either? Chris Lamar secretary Benson talk about Why states have is it well first of all is it fair to say that states have sort of moved away from political boundaries and kind of Looked more toward drawing maps around communities of interest. Is that a trend? Is that a best practice? I'm thinking sorry. I Mean I would say that communities of interest are being given more consideration probably than they have been in the past But I wouldn't say that they're being considered more than Political boundaries like I think political boundaries is still Considered to be an important thing to think about in terms of drawing congressional districts or legislative districts as well But I think the challenge though is that one of the things that we've seen in the past is that Lines have been drawn for Partisan reasons, but they rely on just saying. Oh, well, that's the political boundaries And so like we couldn't help it and there's nothing we can do about that But you know when you look at a map sometimes that you can see that like that's not particularly true, right? Like I mean, I think Dave Daley the author of this book Called rat. I'm ducked because I can't say what it's actually called Talks about this this district, which is Michigan 14 and the Michigan's 14th congressional district in Michigan's 11 congressional district If you look at the two they almost look like these like one is like a snake and the other is like the puzzle piece that fits around the snake and There's this little part where like Farmington is cut out of Michigan 14 and Dave Daley calls it as the it looks like the state of Oklahoma is being balanced on the top of an index finger Because it literally is just cut off cut out of the rest of the rest of the Michigan 14th District and so Dave Daley continued on and he has a conversation with the person who was responsible for drawing this map and he says Oh, well, that's just the political boundaries Like there's nothing I can do about that when it's like you could have like put Farmington in with the rest of the district of Michigan 14 as well kind of thing So I mean it's always one of the concerns is that it using political boundaries could be a pretext for Partisan means instead of like actually thinking about what those communities really look like and what they prefer So, you know Connie or other so what what's the purpose of us concentrating on communities of interest and why why would Why would why would states like California focus on drawing maps around communities? What's the what's the concept behind that? Well in in California the way our process was organized Cities counties neighborhoods and communities of interest were given the same level of priority in the ranked criteria And so every step of the way we had to think about the trade-offs between the two What's more important here to preserve the jurisdictional boundary or is there a community of interest or a neighborhood that might take precedence? Neighborhoods often don't have really locked-in boundaries if you ask 10 people in the same neighborhood They might actually give you a slight variation, which was interesting to discover I'll just give you a couple of quick examples of putting this on the maps when we were in inland, California We were in area that Four different counties came together So it was a kind of a corner where they all just met and we were doing hearings And we found out that this was an area where the community really felt like their jurisdictional boundaries were so dated There had been an area where this community They shared an economy they shared schools and it actually overlapped all four counties and while we were Tried to really minimize splits. We came to talk about where we did make splits as what's a responsible split here How can we both? Preserve the integrity and understand that those jurisdictional boundaries matter and there's times where given how rarely Jurisdictional boundaries change. There's times where they don't actually reflect the fabric of the community that has grown up organically around them There was another example where in northern, California as many of you probably enjoy the wine that comes from California You know that agriculture is really critical to our economy and in our first set of maps. We realized that the grape growing Areas and the processing of those grapes were in one district and we had inadvertently put all the Distributors in a different district and so to have Representatives that actually understand that industry and Cal be an advocate and support for that industry We wouldn't have known that as commissioners who weren't from that area if it wasn't for the community of interest testimony That was able to come in and help shape the maps so by the time we finalize them They were actually a better reflection of the community that was there So again, there's just so many Gaps in terms of the that census data set and a need to really be able to supplement that to have a good Understanding of what's important in a given place Can you just describe for us kind of the process that the California Commission went through to get feedback like this? Sure, so we had a Set of hearings and we divided ourselves to do some hearings before we even put a maps It even did any drafting just to get a general sense of what the public's interests were and then we did a set of hearings That happened once we had a set of draft maps and as we were continuing to change those maps in real time So we would have live visualizations that were always live-streamed where people could weigh in as we were actually in the map making process We had various options on how people would be able to contribute testimony There were many times people wanted to just say what they Individually thought their map should look like and then there were other groups where they were trying to Express a collective vision a collective voice might be some civic organization It might be a neighborhood you name it and so we had in the hearings We would have number of hours set aside for public testimony where all of the commissioners were present And we would have it was like a city council meeting, right? Everyone would come up and have their you know, two to three minutes to be able to express their thoughts And everyone was also welcome to submit in writing or by email What their opinions were so we heard from thousands of Californians in person in those 34 hearings across the state? but we also received tens of thousands of written submissions and emails and with the Folks who were submitting a collective opinion many times those came in the form of a small memo or report Something that was able to aggregate up information from a number of different individuals so I think that ability to have different mechanisms for different communities and There were times where we'd be in a community where they might have a number of members of that community who were limited English Proficiency so they needed a translator to partner with them And so we actually had translators in many of the sessions that we did that would come up to the stand and help to Translate or that help translate in advance so that we could also receive not just those who knew English well, but those who Even if they knew it it might not be the most comfortable way for them to express themselves And and what did the Commission find was sort of the most helpful? Kind of input in terms of you know helping you do your job Well, we learned this a little bit by trial and error from having received some testimony early on that we thought Oh, what are we gonna do with that? So the most important parts were really identified the who who are you talking about and Where do they live work or play be able to put some boundaries around that because at the end of the day as much As it's all very interesting information. I learned so much We've got to draw maps and so if we don't have a way of physically Locating what you're talking about it's gonna be very difficult for us to reflect it in a set of maps So the boundaries they can be everything from a street to a river to a landmark in a community It can take many different forms, but it needs to have a way of boundaries up for us to understand where it would physically go on the map it also For us to be able to document Why should this group of people? Be kept together in a map for purposes of political representation Not just because they like each other or you know, they have fun hanging out together There must be something that they really stand to gain or lose Depending on whether they're grouped together or not In some cases there was a cake. There was a story around It made a it was important to be kept together safer in a congressional map But it was more flexible an assembly map. There might be some federal funding that was really critically at stake I remember we had an area that was a superfund site a federal superfund cleanup site And so for that area to be kept together was really important for them to be able to keep doing the environmental work that they needed to do So that's really the elements. It's the who the where they are and why it matters and being able to Have that documented on the record was what we needed to be able to do our jobs Secretary Benson you'd Mentioned phase three the community mapping process that will happen here in Michigan Can you just describe for us kind of what that process will look like and what tools the Commission will have at its? Disposal to gather input like this. Well the Commission once it's formed is completely autonomous and so all of the decisions that are outside of what's Conscribed in the constitutional amendment will be theirs and theirs alone in terms and including how to weigh different factors how to define communities of interest and so in that regard, you know really the first step of the Commission once convened is to Put them in front put the commissioners in front of experts from all different perspectives and backgrounds that they select because they will have again the autonomy to Do that and and and so that they can begin to educate themselves about how to best make informed decisions moving forward And then I think again the public engagement component of that year is critical Because they will be hiring their hiring their own staff identifying their own data and and software and vendors and all of the rest and hosting their own town halls And in doing so they'll be inviting members of the public to submit maps. My office hopes to be Providing software and data to citizens throughout the state via schools and libraries and other networks So that citizens can ahead of time or without attending a town hall draw their own maps and and meaningfully Persuade the Commission to consider them. So it's going to be the Commission will be autonomous Our office will be kind of focused still on the citizen engagement component of this effort And but I think at every point it will be the voices of citizens who will lead the way And and by that I mean citizens not just those on the Commission But those who are not and advocating for their communities think one of the best stories I heard out of California was one of my favorites where you had two communities of interests Submit who are neighboring communities submit maps these came just from commissioners themselves who we met with to get advice And they submitted maps that were in conflict with each other So that's another kind of the the inherent subjectivity in many ways of the definition Can lead to two people in the same geographic area having two definitions of the boundaries and other aspects of What makes the community of interest and what I love is my understanding of this story is that the Commission basically said to the two Entities that came forward with these conflicting maps Work it up and work it out amongst yourselves and come back to us with a compromise and they did just that They kind of went away came up redrew the district and came back and said this is what we feel the district should be That's what this process ultimately should be about right engaging citizens in that way at every step of the way And so my hope is that the Commission will similarly do that my expectation Is is that they will based on the the the large amount of people who are going to be I think involved in the In the engagement process, but again the Commission itself one seat is an entirely autonomous And so it will ultimately be up to those commissioners themselves to Determine again within the confines of the constitutional amendment how to proceed great. Thanks So Connie can you can you help our Commission kind of? our state kind of set our up our Commission for success right like what are the some of the greatest challenges that you guys came up against in terms of Evaluating the information you were getting or or the amount of time that you had to kind of process all the information about Communities and then and then turn them into actual maps Just the first thing I'll say is because the Commission is autonomous You know they'll have a number of decisions They have to make about how to organize themselves to do the work that will have a material impact on the maps that are drawn At the end of the day and so I do think it's important for those of you who care about the integrity of the process and the Precedent that's being set is just as important to watch how they are setting themselves up and to weigh in on that as It is actually to weigh in on the communities of interest piece I'll give you an example, which is because of all the dirty baggage that redistricting has across the country When we were seated we realized quickly that if no matter who we chose on the Commission Whatever their political party was our Commission was going to have the image that that party had more influence on the Commission And so we decided to establish a rotating Rotating structure of leadership where we would always have someone from a different party in the chair seat and the vice chair seat So if we have a Republican in the chair seat We have to have a Democrat or an independent on the vice chair seat and we set time increments at which we would switch them out And so anyone who on the Commission wanted to be part of the leadership could be part of the leadership And that also helped to manage the image the the public's Understanding that this Commission was really for the people all of the people and to guard against undue influence There's a number of different policy considerations like that that again the Secretary's office won't be able to dictate But the public can certainly weigh in on I encourage you to be able to do that I think the sheer volume of Testimony is a real challenge and particularly given this was the first time out the gate that that anyone in the nation had done a redistricting independent truly independent process The the Interest level was shocking. I mean, I remember sitting in a hearing in Los Angeles and Looking out hundreds and hundreds of people and we had only booked the hearing room I think for about three hours and we ended up going to we passed five hours and finally when we were getting close to six hours the venue kicked us out and There were times where we had flexibility in the venues and others where we did it And so there was just this pent-up demand Particularly the first round where people are upset about their districts and they want to vent and then as they vent They will have an opinion around what a solution could be But it was it was cathartic, right? And so there's a huge volume of information to be managed And I think there's ways where technology has continued to evolve since we did our process nine years ago that having a staffing or consulting to support that helps to manage the inflow of Information and be able to show what the trends are and where the density of the feedback is coming in is really important I mean we had day jobs and then we had the commission rolls and at night I you know be sitting there with my one-year-old and like scrolling through thousands of emails Just trying to make sense of them all and so having that support internally I think is really critical the conflicting communities of interest is Going to happen it in any state it will happen and What the secretary was referring to with these different groups coming together was called we called it the unity maps And that was where as a commission we just got stuck There were some areas of the state that were so densely populated with competing interests that we were very Transparent with the community and we just said you know if if you don't figure out how to compromise We're going to have to make that decision for you and we will do our best But we don't know your community the way you do and so we strongly encourage you to come back with something that is more Integrated and so their ability to do that I think they are much happier with the districts they ended up with then if we had tried to do that just kind of From a blank slate, so I think that issue around volume And I think that the piece around just all of the policy how you actually set yourselves up and what that means in terms of the Day-to-day is really critical. I know that Michigan has Funding Coming and it's modest right compared to the task at hand and so how they determine where and to do hearings Where where are they going to put all of those resources? So many people across the nation don't even know what redistricting is and as a commissioner I so wanted to educate the public as a precursor to them being able to show up at the hearings And we didn't have the budget to be able to do that And so all of you in this room and being able to really through other networks that you have Volunteer associations community-based organizations libraries to be able to let your friends and neighbors know that this is coming All of that is going to be critical to the Commission then being able to come and do a hearing and actually have it be a useful hearing That's a great lead-in actually Connie So we're going to leave time for questions and I want to make sure that you know We have a full house and and that people get opportunity to ask whatever questions you'd like But I'd like to pose one more question then for each of the panelists So you see everyone who's who's you know really interested obviously in the success of the Commission in their communities What's one piece of advice or a suggestion that you might have for anybody in the audience as to how they can get involved or how can they They Help the Commission be more successful like what's what's a role that they can take? Number one apply Number two get everyone you know to apply as well And number three once the Commission is seated if you are not selected be involved in hosting an event to Be a precursor to a town hall where you're educating and having a conversation Even amongst a community or in some way kind of doing that preparation and thought process to Submit your own maps and ensure That yours and other opinions are heard the selection of commissioners is only one aspect of the citizen participation that critical component will come once the Commission is seated and And I think what I'll what I'll underscore as well That I've seen that I on the front lines and having an office in Lansing Is to not underestimate? Efforts of those who are not in this room or maybe I don't know there's some in this room who do not support this Process and I think VNP saw it firsthand through the campaign But there are there are folks out there who usually have had this power and this influence on both sides And they're not happy that they don't have it anymore And they're not just going to sit quietly There will be efforts to try to Delegitimize the process and we in my office are ready to sort of be the shield and take the hits But but but it's important that the truth and the narrative of citizen engagement breaks through any other attempts to Confuse the process or wrongly define the process as one that is anything other than independent and Transparent and citizen led so if you can help kind of tell the story as well to ensure that citizens know how how What a great opportunity this process is and how truly transparent and citizen led an independent it's it will be Is going to be I think really important to the Commission's ultimate success When we first got going as a commission We were hated in our in Sacramento, which is the kid the state Okay The reason that I say that though is is because we were we were really striking at the nerve center of how The politicians were wielding their power and so they didn't want us to be able to Order pencils or to have a meeting room to get to go into and so I think as those commissioners get seated Whether or not you're one of them being able to tell that story and be an ambassador for the process I'm more and more confident. There's no perfect set of maps There's no perfect set of commissioners, but the the standard to hold ourselves to is will this process be more fair more Transparent and better than what it was before and know that it's also a learning process This is the first time Michigan is doing this and I know in California We had so many things we learned the first time that we quickly did some additional Legislation to clean up some things that were more messy with the first process, right? So to take it from that spirit of can we be better than we were before and know that we're gonna get it even better the next time The only thing I would just say in terms of all of your roles that that education role is is so critical I know voters not politicians the network that you have is so vibrant and strong in different areas of the state and to Think of this as the next phase of your work to continue to be ambassadors around redistricting and to be Connecting the dots most people don't care about redistricting and the second you say that word they might tune out But what do your neighbors care about what does your family care about and help them to see how? Redistricting actually helps shape at the end of the day What their local schools look like or what their parks look like go to that level and then back into the Redistricting because once you make it really personal for people they will care But otherwise there's a very kind of small and eclectic group of us who actually care about redistricting. So Please don't lead with that Very small and very Well, I observed as many did in 2018 the fact that V&P put an issue on the ballot without paid circulators And that is incredible The only other group that's really able to do that today is the right to life and I watched many many ballot proposals come It costs well over a million dollars to put one on the ballot to pay circulators to go out and get signatures When I was an undergraduate just a few years ago I remember I could not convince My friends that where a line was drawn With regard to an electoral district made a difference And look where we are today I mean the fact that this proposal went on the ballot without being paid for and the turnout that it engendered across party lines Is one of the most significant movements has occurred and so my recommendation and advice to you all and your friends and neighbors is one don't get discouraged When as secretary Benson indicated those forces are going to come out and they will try to derail this They're already lost lawsuits. There will be more that is probably the only given that will walk out of this room today There will be more lawsuits and that's okay I mean there's a process for that, but don't be discouraged by that and as you learn about the community of interest The more you talk about it and the more you hear it's like priming a pump and you'll start to say well wow You know this might be one as well So if you see something that looks like a community of interest, don't just walk by it you know talk to somebody about it and Raise it within your community is something that people ought to rally around and take a real serious look at I mean I quite honestly there's nothing to add from like those perspectives, right? Like I mean applying is very important Playing an active role in this process. If you're not a commissioner is very important This this commission doesn't work if people don't show up to talk about what their communities are And the way they believe that those maps should look like one I think one thing I will add those that I've had a couple of workshops around the country where just talking with people about Trying to draw a map yourself and just trying to like talk about like how difficult This process is inherently and so like there's websites like District r.org is one where you can like fill in precincts based on like where you think your community is and like what you think a Legislative or congressional district is and so like for example, we did this in Utah with a couple of people and They were doing it like you know everyone had like Good aims and all this kind of stuff But it's really hard to actually draw some of these maps like it's very much a given take in terms of the way these maps look Like we one example. We did for example was we said all right like you have to put one congressional district like Salt Lake City has to be in one congressional district and Then you figure out the rest Utah has four congressional districts if you put Utah in one Literally like every other congressional district has to be the rest of the state like up and down kind of that kind of thing So like woe to that congressperson who's running for that election that has to run From northern Utah all the way down to the very southern tip of Utah But like so but I think that's important that people have a context for What challenges that the commissioners are dealing with when they're trying to draw these maps fairly and in a transparent way It's not just about Maybe it's not just about like your particular community of interest, but it's about The way your community of interest parts interacts with other communities of interest like maybe yours is represented in some other way Or maybe you have some representation that another particular community doesn't and so I think it's important for The general public to think about the ways that all of these things sort of interact with each other Great. I have one last So Connie this raises for me something that you had mentioned As we were preparing and you said there are some things we can do that commission can do and and as a public I think we can also do an assist with To get the commission ready right because there is a lot there's a lot of like things that kind of interact with each other but there are certain Exercises that we can or the commission can go through to kind of set itself up For its best chances of success. So what are what are some of those? Yeah, but one thing that came to mind is just being able to Already knowing what census data looks like without us knowing what numbers are gonna come out of it You know what it has and what it doesn't have and all those pieces that are missing so information about the economy the Geography the history etc. Those are all things that already exist in other places, right? There's there's trade associations and there's chambers of commerce and there's you know folks in communities that can help fill those things out and so We did have our mapping consultants Provide us with regional snapshots as we would go in to do hearings in a region So that we would be briefed before we went to a place to have an understanding of Okay, here's the main components of this community and we'll probably hear some of this there It also helped us as a commission to be able to identify if we read something in one of those reports And then we were hearing nothing about it in the actual hearings that we needed to kind of go and dig for more information So there's a lot of information gathering that can actually happen In advance to be able to have the commission be prepared and to receive the public testimony in a more informed way And those it seems like there are strong partnerships both with academia with different nonprofit and community organizations that can help to Just get that going from V&Ps You know from from my point of view. I'm thinking of like layered education to write to the public So that's great. Well, thank you so much. I'd like to thank the panelists secretary Benson I know that you had other Engagements and so I'd like to invite you to be part of the Q&A, but understand it Thank you. Yeah, I'm sorry. I can't stay for the whole event But I will say two things if you have any questions for me specifically You can email me at secretary at Michigan gov And if you have any questions about the commission that you have after tonight or just want to stay in touch Redistricting at Michigan gov is the website or is the email we've set up again redistricting at Michigan gov If you have any questions about the process at any point and again I'm just secretary at Michigan gov and you'll hear back from me or at redistricting michigan gov someone else sally My team but that's a way that you if you have any further questions. You can reach out directly. Thanks. Thank you so much We have some Ford school students who are going to help us With the Q&A section. Yes. Hello. My name is Nick and a drama second-year masters of public policy student here at the Ford School Thank you again to each of you for making today happen Our first question from the audience is how might you explain to a voter? Who's never heard of a community of interest before how to express to the commission what a coi is or how to map it and Then secondary to that question. We had a couple around the idea of What if you are part of multiple communities of interest and how do you balance competing communities of interest? So I'll say quickly that We I mean I've worked with BNP on this in terms of like having workshops about Asking that very question, right? It's like what is like your community and that's sort of where you start, right? Like we we were talking with high school kids and I was just like or kids. I'm sorry There were college students and I was just like, you know what like what is your community to you? And they had this actually one of them made this really good comparison where he talked about his high school And so he was like, you know My community in high school were like the kids I played football with and so he just kind of talked about like that and it kind of Extrapolated from that way, but I think it's once you I can understand that like community of interest sounds like this really big thing But if you really just like say like talk to me about like what is like your day-to-day looks like and like who are the people? You see and who are the people you interact with and work with and all that kind of stuff That's sort of like the way you can have the conversation to brought that out a little bit Yeah, I would just add that being able to to layer that with what do you need from your leaders? What the community or communities that you're a part of what do you need from your leaders? What do you have to gain or to lose from your leaders being responsive to you etc? And that that helps to drill down a bit more concretely as it relates to the political Representation piece. I know on the Commission in California. They're there's so much conflicting testimony I mean so many of us have different hats we wear Different perspectives or things that are important to us and at the end of the day There are there are judgment calls right the goal is not that everyone walks out of this process Thrilled with the maps. That's not the way this works in a democracy where we share space and we share political power The goal is that we have a set of fair maps that everybody can live with and I do think that as we all Educate our community is around redistricting. It's important for us to say that because there are Some who who may think that oh my personal interests will all be reflected even even as a commissioner There were so many things that I might have individually done differently in the maps That just didn't make sense when you're trying to balance a whole diverse state and all the different interests that there are and so we really tried to look at who has the most to gain or lose and Make sure to prioritize that in terms of how we were thinking about communities of interest if we actually had to choose Between one community of interest or the other and as I mentioned earlier There were also times where we were able to keep a community of interest whole in one set of maps Say in the congressional or the assembly or the Senate but not in all three sets of maps And so that also gave us some flexibility as a commission to say we're not going to be able to give everyone everything But but we want to be able to make it fair All right. Thank you. I'm Sophia merchant I'm a first-year master of public policy student at the Ford school our next questions for Nancy Specifically and what's the reasoning behind assigning such a high priority to communities of interest and how do you think this will promote? fairer and more effective representative democracy in Michigan as Tom mentioned at the beginning during the introductions, you know our Constitutional amendment drafting process It started with 33 town halls all across the state in 33 days And we had we had a lot of public input into it and and I think you know on the voter side We knew what we had and what we had were maps that had like no connection whatsoever It actually like you know where communities were targeted and split and you know cracked and packed for political gain And so we went back all the way to like Elemental like you know what what are these melt maps supposed to accomplish, right? They're supposed to help our us, you know as the people who are living within a geographical Area who share some interest that we want to see represented in government You know we that's supposed to enable that to happen. And so that's why we elevated communities of interest way above you know things like Like political boundaries or you know other things that that might have seemed to make sense Maybe at some point, but have become increasingly outdated and weaponized. So that's why This question is for Miss Malloy specifically an audience member asked What is the flip side of your your wine industry example? How do you balance communities of interest being kept together without concentrating shared political interests? I'll give an example that is not an economic example, but it is Related to race which in California, you know, we have a very diverse population particularly in our urban areas and we had to wrestle in a certain part of Los Angeles with how to design a set of congressional districts in a way that balanced what had historically been a Long-standing African-American community that was now expanding and having many more immigrants coming from Latin America and from Asia and Pacific Islands and There was differing opinions on how to be able to do that either of those opinions would have been completely legal one was that you give make two districts where African-Americans are a majority in those districts and the other option was to Spread that same African-American population out over three districts where they have an influence but they are not the majority within those districts and You know both options are legal Everyone on the commission may have their certain opinion of what they think is most Strategic for that given community But at the end of the day the community of interest testimony was what made the decision for us because the community was the one that came out And told us we actually want the three district proposal our community has evolved We actually work in coalition more and we don't want to be packed into two districts That just doesn't reflect who we are at this point in time And so I think it was an example where if we had just looked at the maps We may not have had that rich testimony that helped to drive our decision making We would have thought that we would have been making the best decision on the bed on that community to give them Yes, you've got a majority in these two districts, but that's not really what they wanted That's not what reflected their own experience. So I think it's example of where we we actually divided a bit more So one audience member wrote that many people worry that Americans are becoming too insular and listening only to others with similar views Is there any concern that districting based on communities of interest could make us more insular and less able to compromise? It's really interesting. I think it's one where To the point around communities of interest Very few of us even in this room probably identify with one community of interest with a definition as broad as shared social or economic interest You know, there's like I'm a mom. I have kids in the public school system. I You know, I own a home, but I rented a home for many years You know, I care about my environment there's just so many different cuts that you could take on what it is to have a community of interest and I think one benefit of having a Transparent public process was that the public that was showing up with their own individual opinions They didn't just leave with their individual opinions They were able to see and hear from their neighbors on what their neighbors cared about and then they had the benefit of hearing Us as a commission wrestle with how to integrate all of that information Whereas the past how redistricting was done. None of that was ever aired There was just a set of maps that was drawn behind closed doors. The public never had a chance to weigh in They just kind of had to live with it And so I do think that if done right in a public process that is really inviting and balances all of that It is a step towards better understanding who our neighbors are and being able to work together in districts that balance all of our competing needs and aspirations. Yeah, I think I mean, I think that's 100% right I think the other thing to sort of really focus on is the way the system was Prior to the voters approving of the constitutional amendment, right? Like these maps happened in the back room and the lines were cut basically on partisan lines and less about What can what their communities were and less about like sort of what the economic social and cultural Concerns were of that community and more about just who Those people voted for and how they voted to make sure that certain politicians got Certain seats every single time no matter what the voters actually wanted in that election So I mean, I think that's one of the things to always think about when Like I can understand like some critiques about being insular But I think sort of to a certain degree that in terms of like the hyper partisanship that we found ourselves in today It's almost a reflection of the gerrymandering that happened in 2011 in the first place In addition to public testimony from citizens What role can data play in the commissioner's interpretation of communities of interest at the same time What role should data play in the commissioners interpretation? I Mean it's it's critical And I think in Michigan because the commission is autonomous The only thing you know for sure is they're going to have to use the census data So it really is up to the commission to decide what other information is useful to be able to solicit And so the public can get ahead of that in a way and start to weigh in and just have this Conversation around what are the important things that you think the commission should be looking at to complement that census data? I do think that and I shared this with some of the students here earlier that Because of the high volume of information that's coming in that being able to take advantage of new ways of just Massing information that's coming in and doing data analysis as you're getting public testimony in I think will make it more Manageable with the time constraints of the commissioners and them trying to really show up and do their job so at the end of the day, I think We have to prioritize communities of interest Testimony as a type of data I think we can often get into this binary where if it's not a Number in the way that the census data is that it is not data and it's all different kinds of data And so the complexity of the job that this the commission has to do is how do you really? Merge both the numbers and statistics with the story and the the texture and the physical terrain of a place and That together makes a set of fair maps I'll just note to that. Oh, I'm so sorry I'll just make the note that the data that they will have when they begin The Bureau of Elections works with various folks in state government Will be 10 years of election return data That then gets based on census tracks and maps Blocks and tracks so there will be that delay that data and that data is also political data So nobody should be disabused of the fact that politics is still involved So each of those precincts carries some sort of political Information attached to it and many of the Communities of interest will also have a political identity So, you know, that's you're never going to take it all out. It's still going to be there Just wanted to note that you know, this is the age of big data, right? There's all sorts of data available on everybody and the Commission unlike the Commission in other states We'll have the ability to access whatever data it wants and use that and incorporate it in when they're drawing the maps The difference is in the new process the public will know Exactly all of the different sources of data that the Commission has consulted when it draws the maps All right, so this will be the last question that we have time for and it's directed to mr. Thomas What do you foresee is the biggest concern or the biggest challenge that? Michigan will encounter in implementing this new process Well, I think that just from the procedures Probably use more money, which is always a case and I think it should be well funded to make it a success The voters of this state spoke it wasn't a close election And I think it's incumbent on state government to make sure that one it's properly funded and two That strings are not attached to that In terms of the final result and how that then translates over into the elections themselves It may be a little challenging I'm starting to see communities of interest being similar to jurisdiction lines and some of them will not follow standard jurisdiction lines given where people live and and how they Spill out of you know, you may look at one community and think You know Hamtramic for example has a Bengali population. Well part of that in Detroit as well Southern Warren in the census material may end up Having a larger African-American population than people expect Then when that is a couple perhaps with Detroit, there's our districts will come out So this is going to be a challenge and it'll be a challenge to election officials To put precincts together, but it's all doable It's just you know a different way of doing it The equipment and the technology for voting systems is far superior than it was in 72 and 82 They can handle precincts with multiple splits with electronic poll books and whatnot So there are challenges no question about it, but We Have got the direction from the voters and that's where we need to go Please join me in thanking our