GOP draws blood with Michigan map

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After suffering weeks of redistricting setbacks, Republicans finally got some good news.

With the party reeling from recent developments in Illinois and California—where the GOP is poised to lose as many as 10 seats between the two states—Michigan Republicans on Friday introduced a draft plan that would net the party a seat and bolster a handful of GOP incumbents.

With full Republican control of the state’s redistricting levers, Democrats acknowledge there is little they can do to dramatically alter the plan.

The biggest loser: Rep. Gary Peters, a sophomore Democrat who is thrown into the same southeastern Michigan district with fellow Democratic Rep. Sander Levin.

The Oakland County-based Peters faces few good options. He can either run against Levin, a top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee and a 15-term veteran who hails from one of the state’s most prominent political families, or compete against GOP Rep. Thaddeus McCotter in a nearby district with a Republican orientation.

Peters, a former state lottery commissioner who has been widely mentioned as a potential future statewide candidate, could decide to run for another office entirely – he’s been rumored as a possible contender for Oakland County executive.

The Michigan Democrat has long been viewed as a likely Republican target as a junior member in a state where the congressional delegation is shrinking from 15 to 14 seats.

In a joint statement, Peters and Levin blasted the plan as a blatant Republican gerrymander.

“Voters in Michigan have never before faced such a shamelessly partisan redrawing of congressional boundaries,” they said. “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.”

Peters and Levin also called on lawmakers to “reject this gerrymandered map and draw congressional boundaries in a way that puts Michigan voters’ interests squarely ahead of flagrant partisan advantage.”

The draft blueprint follows what Republican officials describe as a concerted nationwide effort to shore up the party’s potentially vulnerable incumbents before attempting to squeeze large gains out of the redistricting process. Among those who would end up with safer districts is McCotter, the five-term potential presidential candidate who has been on Democratic target lists, and powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton.

Republicans also boosted several potentially vulnerable freshmen, adding GOP voters to the districts of Reps. Dan Benishek and Tim Walberg.

Democratic Rep. John Dingell, the longest-serving member of the House, emerged unscathed from the remap process. The former Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, who has twice been drawn into member vs. member primary contests over the course of his long career, still finds himself in a comfortably Democratic district outside Detroit.

Rep. John Conyers, the veteran former Judiciary Committee chairman, remains in a safely Democratic, Detroit-based seat.