LANSING, MI -- The Michigan legislature has racked up $1.2 million in legal bills fighting a federal court case alleging Michigan’s districts are illegally gerrymandered, according to financial documents released by the House and Senate business offices.

The case, League of Women Voters v. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, was filed in 2017 and challenges Michigan’s political districts. A federal court in April ruled those districts were gerrymandered and required the maps be re-drawn -- a process that’s been put on hold while the United States Supreme Court considers the case.

The case did not name the legislature or individual legislators, who approved the maps in 2011, as a party. Instead, Republicans including individual House lawmakers and the Senate Republicans chose to intervene in the case, and have spent more than $1 million in that effort.

The House released a tally of its expenditures related to the case: $656,390. House Republican spokesperson Gideon D’Assandro said the House contracted with Clark Hill, an international law firm.

“The lawsuit brought by the plaintiffs unfortunately dragged the House of Representatives into court and threw hundreds of thousands of Michigan residents into limbo, unclear about who represents them at the Capitol and who will be their voice in state government going forward," D’Assandro said.

“The House has a responsibility to defend state law, elected representatives and its staff -- both Democrats and Republicans -- as they navigate this lawsuit. Unfortunately state government was dragged into court by the plaintiffs looking to throw Michigan’s elections into chaos.”

The House and Senate are not bound by the state’s Freedom of Information Act, but release financial information under their own rules.

Senate records show the body spent $577,571 on legal services since May of 2018. The Senate contracted with the Southfield-based Collins Einhorn Farrell P.C. and Dykema Gossett PLCC, a national firm that shares an office building with the Senate in Lansing.

A Senate Republican spokesperson declined to comment on the expenditure.

In total, the House and Senate have spent $1.2 million so far in the ongoing litigation.

That dollar figure is disappointing to Nancy Wang, executive director of the Voters Not Politicians group that ran Proposal 2 of 2018- which overhauled the state’s redistricting process.

“It doesn’t surprise me. Yet as a taxpayer and a voter it’s really disappointing. I know that there’s a huge debate going on right now about how to fund road repairs, and a million dollars is a lot of money,” Wang said.

Voters Not Politicians ran their successful ballot drive by painting the redistricting process used in 2011 and previous cycles as flawed. The ballot measure put in place a new, transparent process involving citizens that will re-draw the maps starting in 2020.

“For those politicians to be spending taxpayer dollars and to be fighting to keep those rigged maps that voters overwhelmingly rejected, it’s just an example of why voters really did come together and unite and pass Proposal 2... because we’re sick of exactly this kind of action that’s been taken by lawmakers that very clearly is not in the interest of their voters but rather in their own interest and the interest of their party,” Wang said.

The League of Women Voters started the lawsuit. Asked about the $1.2 million expenditure by the legislature, League Redistricting Director Sue Smith said, “The voters have a right to be represented fairly. And if the legislature, whoever it might be, chooses to draw the maps in such a way that it diminishes the voters’ rights, then that has to be rectified.”

The legislative costs come on top of what the state itself spent on the case, which named former Secretary of State Ruth Johnson and current Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson as defendants. The state was billed for at least $1.3 million by outside firms, according to invoices obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The case is ongoing, and currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.