LANSING – Robert LaBrant, the general counsel for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, has the lead role in crafting the new maps for Michigan’s 14 U.S. House districts, Gongwer News Service has learned.

LaBrant, considered one of the foremost experts on election, campaign finance and redistricting laws in the state, is working with Jeff Timmer, a Republican political consultant with the Lansing-based Sterling Corporation, in designing the maps, a source told Gongwer News Service. LaBrant also is a key figure in the Chamber’s backing of conservative candidates.

Asked Tuesday about his role in putting together the congressional map, LaBrant said, “I’m not going to comment on something that’s pending.”

Timmer also declined to comment.

House Republicans are taking the lead on drawing the map for the 110 House districts and Senate Republicans the same for the 38 Senate districts. That matches with how redistricting occurred 10 years ago, the first time in 70 years that one party controlled all levers of the redistricting process. But 10 years ago, the state Republican Party took the lead on the U.S. House maps.

LaBrant’s presence in the redistricting process was first reported by The Detroit News, which obtained a draft version of the U.S. House maps. Although the final U.S. House map is expected to differ somewhat from that map, the basic concepts in the map should hold, sources have told Gongwer.

However, what LaBrant’s role was had been unclear until this point.

Messages left with the offices of Sen. Joe Hune (R-Hamburg) and Rep. Pete Lund (R-Shelby Township), the chairs of the redistricting committees in their respective legislative houses, were not returned.

In other redistricting developments, Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville (R-Monroe) said Tuesday that while the Legislature would complete the legislative and U.S. House maps this month, it would hold off on the districts for the Court of Appeals until after the Legislature returns in September. Richardville referred questions on the reason for waiting on the judicial map to Hune.

Richardville also said he considered the Apol criteria, which call for districts to be compact, contiguous and break as few municipal and county boundaries as possible, to be binding. The Supreme Court ruled in a lawsuit against the 2001 U.S. House reapportionment plan that the Apol criteria, while in statute, amounted to nothing more than nonbinding advice because a new statute trumps a previous statute.

“I’ve had mixed advice from different lawyers, so we’re still looking at it,” Richardville said. “But at this point in time, we are trying to abide by and live up to those standards as best we can.”

Richardville declined to discuss directly the implications of the map that appeared in the News that indicated two Democratic incumbents, U.S. Rep. Sander Levin of Royal Oak and U.S. Rep. Gary Peters of Bloomfield Township, would be put into the same district.

The map leaked to the News would favor a Republican to win nine seats and a Democrat to win five seats. Conceivably, Democrats in a good Democratic year could compete in the proposed maps for the 3rd District held by U.S. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Kentwood), the 7th District held by U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Tipton), the 1st District held by U.S. Rep. Dan Benishek and perhaps even the 8th District held by U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Brighton).

Asked if he was content with the idea of Peters and Levin in the same district, Richardville said, “Our first and foremost thought is to make sure everything we do is legal.”

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