Michigan taxpayers are on the hook for more than $5.5 million in legal fees racked up by the Michigan’s Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission since 2022.

On Wednesday, the 13-member commission agreed to pay $1.7 million in attorney and consultant fees for plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit that determined 13 state House and Senate districts were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders, The Detroit News reports.

“The total agreed to Wednesday includes about $1.2 million for the main law firm handling the plaintiffs’ case, Clark Hill; $384,000 to attorney John Bursch’s law firm; $110,000 for Sean Trende, an analyst for RealClearPolitics who acted as an expert witness in the case; and nearly $38,000 for Brad Lockerbie, an East Carolina University political science professor who also testified in the case,” according to the news site.

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

That cost to taxpayers is expected to continue to increase as the settlement does not include two special masters the commission employed to redraw the House and Senate districts. The commission also spent $2.8 million on defense attorneys between March 2022 and June 2024, as well as $297,000 for Voting Rights Act counsel, and $748,000 for local counsel during the same time frame, spokesman Edward Woods told The News.

In December, a three judge panel blocked Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson from holding elections in 13 House and Senate districts until the districts are redrawn to comply with the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Rights Act.

The judges found the commission relied on experts who used incomplete primary data to set Black voting age percentages in those districts to guarantee a Black-preferred candidate would survive the primary, which ultimately decides races in a city dominated by Democratic voters.

“Yet these experts told the commissioners again and again – based on general election data alone – that Black-preferred candidates would ‘perform well’ in these districts,” the judges wrote in the December opinion. “That was a grave disservice to everyone involved with this case, above all the voters themselves.”

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

Plaintiffs in the case argued pressure from experts to lower the number of Black voters in those districts to achieve better partisan fairness scores resulted in distorted districts that stretched into predominantly white suburbs, according to The News.

The ruling prompted the commission in March to increase its pay from 25% of the governor’s salary to 35% to reflect the additional redistricting work, though four members of the commission opposed the pay hike, Michigan Public reports.

“From January 1 to yesterday, so March 20, I calculated that we worked 126.4 hours. That works out to a little more than 11 hours a week, and if you actually figure out the hourly wage for that, it’s about $63 an hour,” Commissioner Rebecca Szetela, who voted against the raise, said at the time, noting the commission had already blown through more than half of its budget in the first four months of the year.

“Rather than kind of checking what we’re spending on, we’re proposing raising our costs by raising salaries,” Szetela said. “That just seems extremely irresponsible from a fiscal perspective.”

The commission attempted to appeal the federal court decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied in January a request to halt the lower court ruling. The commission ultimately produced a new state House map in February, and a new Senate map in June.

The state House districts were used for the August primary, while the Senate districts will not go into effect until 2026, according to Michigan Public.

The $1.7 million in legal fees, and $5.5 million since 2022, contribute to more than $10 million the commission has spent since September 2020, spending Rep. Ann Bollin, R-Brighton Township, argued in a May column for The News is part of a pattern of “wasteful and neglectful behavior” at the MICRC.

Bollin noted that when the commission voted to increase its pay to more than $55,000 to deal with the court-ordered redistricting, it sent a letter to the House and Senate Appropriations Committee chairs requesting an additional $3.33 million.

“The MICRC’s lack of accountability is glaring. Taxpayers have no direct recourse to hold the commission accountable as its members cannot be recalled and meetings are held virtually, limiting public engagement. This lack of transparency and responsibility is unacceptable, especially given the significant financial impact on Michigan residents,” Bollin wrote.

“Looking ahead to the redistricting cycle after the 2030 census, it’s crucial to implement strict measures to control spending. We need stringent budget oversight, more public accountability, transparent financial reporting and most importantly, fair maps.”