From The Detroit News:

The goal, say the organizers behind the Republican’s Redistricting Majority Project (REDMAP), is to gain GOP majorities this year to influence redistricting for the 2012 elections. Michigan is expected to lose a House seat because of its declining population and gains in population in the South.

That means the state’s 15-member House delegation will shrink to 14, and district lines will have to be redrawn by the state legislature and approved by the governor.

Democrats shot back at the Republican plan late Thursday. In a post on the group’s blog, Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee officials said they’re “girding for the fight of our political lives. Redistricting is too important to the future of the Democratic Party and progressive policies to do any less.”

They noted the last redistricting in 2001 helped the GOP lose fewer seats in the 2002 midterms. Traditionally, midterms elections see losses for the sitting president’s party.

Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican State Leadership Committee, said the focus of the REDMAP strategy would be funding GOP candidates for state legislator positions focusing on “issues which cause votes to be cast,” like roads, schools and taxes, “not redistricting.”

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