LANSING, Mich. (MIRS News) – The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission met Thursday despite not having its Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 budget set.

MICRC Executive Director Edward Woods III said on top of the budget not being set, the bills from defending the redrawn maps in the two ongoing court cases continue to pile up, and the commission is still constitutionally required to meet once per month until they go dormant.

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“When we prevail, we’ll just go back to paying everyone retroactively. I mean, that’s where we are, because people haven’t stopped working. You can’t stop working,” Woods said.

The MICRC then voted to give Woods the power to start a lawsuit to get the Legislature to comply with the Constitutional requirement of funding the commission.

“Our goal is to resolve this amicably as soon and as simply as possible, because we believe that’s what the voter’s intent was when they passed Prop 2 in 2018,” Woods said. “However, we can take advantage of a mechanism that voters provided in the constitution, if we’re not able to resolve this impasse with the Legislature.”

The Legislature does not have a session scheduled until Nov. 9. However, there have been a series of letters passed between Woods and the General Government Appropriations Committee. The MICRC has $1.7 million left on the books from FY22 that needs to be returned to the Department of Treasury.

“We have not spent any of that money in FY ’23, and I want to make sure we’re very clear about that,” Woods said.

He said during the meeting that bills from September were still trickling in, which had brought the $1.7 million to about $1.4 million to close out 2022.