Manchester's congressional, state senate, house districts may change under new plan

If you follow me on Twitter (which you should!), this morning I was tweeting up a storm of Michigan county names and numbers. The reason?

It was my second journalistic Christmas.

This morning, Michigan's Republicans released their proposed redistricting plan for the states congressional, state Senate and state house representatives for the next 10 years. It comes just a few months after the U.S. Census Bureau released specific data for states and municipalities, which I blogged about here.

Manchester's positioning saw a bit of a change, namely in its state Senate district. Currently, the village, Manchester and Bridgewater townships are represented by State Sen. and Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, in the 17th District. Freedom and Sharon townships are in the 18th district.

Richardville's current district, which includes all of Monroe County,  most of southern Washtenaw County and a few townships in Jackson County.

Under the proposed plan, all four townships and the village would be placed in the 22nd District, which encompasses all of Livingston County and Washtenaw County west of Ann Arbor.

The new district with Manchester,
with all four townships
 represented by the same senator.

No matter what happened, however, Manchester was going to have new representation in 2014, since Richardville is term-limited out.

This move makes good sense for the village for a few reasons: One, the Greater Manchester community falls under the same Senator, which is a good thing. Two, it connects Manchester more with communities that are more similar to it and it relates to; Chelsea is a closer town to Manchester than say, Monroe.

The state House district remains very similar, covering most of western Washtenaw County. The only real difference is it snakes out a bit farther north and east, stretching to Salem Township, and no longer covers part of the City of Ann Arbor.

The new 52nd district, under
the state GOP plan.

  Congressionally, the village would remain in the 7th District, currently represented by Tim Walberg. The district doesn't change too much, except it loses Calhoun County and the Battle Creek voters it comes with, and now includes Monroe County, which is currently served by U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn.

The new 7th district, proposed by the Michigan legislature. If it goes into effect,
the 7th would lose Calhoun County and pick up Monroe County.

Overall, not too much change for Manchester. The biggest change is the state Senate, but it looks like the village will be grouped with similar areas and could benefit from it in the long run.

Of course, all this is conditional that the legislature approves the change and challenges to the plan are not successful. Plans must be completed and finalized by Nov. 1 of this year, and will take place during the next election cycle.

And because I can't help myself, here are a few other observations from around Michigan:

•  People talk a lot about gerrymandering, or drawing the lines to benefit one party or another. The most obvious case I can see of this is the new 5th Congressional district, which takes Bay County, most of Saginaw County (including the city of Saginaw), western Tuscola County and all of Genesee County, home of Flint. The district is a very liberal one, and keeps many blue areas together.
• Detroit has the potential to not be represented by a native in both the state Senate and Congress, which was pointed out in this Detroit News article. Because of federal law, majority minority districts must be protected. And since Detroit lost so much in population the last 10 years, boundaries had to be expanded into more black suburbs, such as Southfield and Oak Park. 
• As many people thought, Reps. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, and Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak, have been merged into one seat, since Michigan had to forfeit one of its 15 seats due to decrease in population. The next curious step is, who will run, and who will win?
• The 1st Congressional district, aka the "Yooper District," has boundaries that make more sense now. Before, the district, which spans the entire Upper Peninsula, reached down the eastern coast of Lake Huron and touched down into northern Bay County. Meanwhile, Traverse City and Leelanau County were represented by U.S. Rep. Dave Camp, R-Midland. The proposed map has the 1st district lines across the state, taking the complete upper third of the Lower Peninsula with it. This is a no-brainer, and probably should have been done 10 years ago.

 Are there other anomalies with the proposed map? Share them in the comments, I'd love to hear them!

2010 Census: The specifics for the Greater Manchester area and Washtenaw County

For some people, last Tuesday was just that, a plain old Tuesday. But for some, including this reporter, it was like Christmas morning.
Last Tuesday was the day that detailed counts of Michigan's municipalities' populations was released by the Census Bureau. This data showed the population changes of everything from the City of Detroit, which got its population numbers decimated the last ten years, dropping to 713,777, to Pointe Aux Barques Township in Huron County, which only has 10 residents (How do they manage that?!?).
Census data, which was collected last spring, is vital to areas such as representation, growth and probably most importantly, funding. Funding for the next ten years is determined using census data, and a decrease in population can be devastating to a municipality's state-shared revenue.
Locally, numbers for the greater Manchester area varied. The Village of Manchester saw a slight decrease, going from 2,170 in 2000 to 2,091, a decrease of 79 people, or 3.6 percent.
The data was much different for Manchester Township, which saw an increase of people. The township gained 438 people, going up from 4,097 to 4,569, a 11.5 percent increase.
In Bridgewater Township, very little change in population took place, with an additional 23 people registering as living in the township. In 2010, 1,674 people lived in Bridgewater Township, compared to 1,651 11 years ago. Same thing applied to Sharon Township, with only a 3.5 percent increase, going from 1,678 to 1,737.
Freedom Township was the only township in the southwest corner of Washtenaw County to lose population, going from 1,573 to 1,428, a decrease of 9.2 percent.
Overall, the Greater Manchester area (the village and the four surrounding townships) had a population of 11,578.
The trend in the southwest corner of the county seemed similar to what happened across the county, except in smaller terms. More city populations decreased this cycle, and more people are living in outside townships. To see other municipalities in Washtenaw County's population, check out the map below and click on a marker.