A federal appeals court upheld the creation of Michigan’s independent redistricting commission in a decision issued Wednesday that rejected an appeal by state Republicans that the commission violated their constitutional rights.

More than a dozen states have some form of a redistricting commission, which will draw new district lines based on results of the 2020 census.

Michigan voters in 2018 approved an amendment to its state constitution that handed over district line-drawing power from state lawmakers to a 13-member commission. But litigants, which included the state GOP party, argued that selection criteria for commission members and limitations on what those members could say publicly violated the Constitution.

The 6th U.S. Circuit of Appeals disagreed. In its opinion Wednesday, the panel said the state’s limits on who could serve and what those members could say about their work didn’t run afoul of the First Amendment.

“But whether a state’s task be district-line drawing or setting the rules for its elections, I (like the majority opinion) am reluctant to interfere with a state’s effort to structure its system of government, to which we owe significant deference, absent the infringement of a dramatic federal interest or a significant violation of constitutional rights,” wrote Judge Chad Readler, who was appointed by President Donald Trump.