DETROIT – For decades, every time Michigan’s legislature drew new congressional districts they made sure to create two in which Blacks were a majority of the registered voters.
They did that primarily because they believed that was legally required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was designed to give minorities opportunities to elect candidates of their choice.
But this year, for the first time ever, the new districts were not drawn by legislators, but by the new Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. None of the 13 districts they drew has a Black majority, though one has more African-Americans, according to last year’s census, than it does white voters.
And that has caused enormous controversy. The Detroit Caucus, the Michigan Legislature’s rough equivalent of the Congressional Black Caucus, filed a lawsuit in the state courts last week charging that while the plan is nonpartisan, the new districts would “unlawfully reduce the voting power of minority racial groups to elect the candidate of their choosing.”
Is that true? Given the requirements of the Voting Rights Act, is this plan even legal, and likely to be upheld by the courts?
While many African-Americans don’t think it is fair, another notable expert disagrees. Robert Sedler, a distinguished law professor emeritus at Wayne State University in Detroit, thinks having more districts with a substantial, but not majority Black population may not only be constitutional, but actually elect more minority representatives and give Blacks more political clout.
“Voting districts with a Black population over 35 percent are called “influence districts,” and any candidate there will have to be responsive to the interests of Black voters,” said Sedler, who has argued cases for civil rights groups before the U.S. Supreme Court.
He added that voting is also no longer as polarized along racial lines as it once was. Most of President Obama’s voters were white. And both Detroit and the large suburb of Southfield where Sedler lives have populations that are overwhelmingly Black, but which just easily reelected popular white mayors.
“The theory of the Voting Rights Act is that minority voters should have an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice, but that candidate doesn’t have to be a minority person,” he added.
But many African-American politicians aren’t happy. While the new congressional districts get most of the media attention, they are equally unhappy with the new legislative districts, which have no majority black state senate districts and fewer in the house.
They fear that if the present maps stand, there may soon be far fewer black legislators — and none at all from Michigan in Congress.
They have some reason to worry. Though Michigan had has an African-American member of Congress since 1955 and two Black members from 1965 to 2018, that changed when Rashida Tlaib, a Muslim American of Palestinian descent was elected to Congress after winning a crowded Democratic primary in which various other candidates split the Black vote. That left only U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence, a suburban Democrat. But last week, Lawrence announced that she would retire from Congress.
That leaves the new 12th district, most of which is in Detroit, which has a large black population and no incumbent. But State Rep. Shri Thanedar, an Indian-American multi-millionaire, jumped into the race and said he expects to spend $5 million to win the Democratic primary. Though he is likely to have opposition, he may prevail if, as seems likely, several African-Americans again divide the primary vote, as happened when Rashida Tlaib first won.
There are few Republicans, incidentally, in either this district or the one Tlaib will run in, meaning that winning the Democratic primary is essentially equivalent to being elected.
While the new redistricting commission is being sued, nobody is accusing them of racism, and in fairness, it is much harder to carve out Black majority districts than it once was, in part because to some extent at least, integration seems to be working.
Thirty years ago, most African-Americans lived in Detroit, and populations were largely de-facto segregated or self-segregated. That’s not nearly as true today. Most Black people in Michigan do not live in Detroit; hundreds of thousands are in suburban counties.
The commission was also charged with drawing districts that were compactly shaped and kept together “communities of interest,” meaning they didn’t resemble a snake or a salamander.
It is possible that the courts will order the redistricting commission to make changes, but probably unlikely. Nominating petitions for most state offices have to be filed by April 19. While the lawsuit was filed in state court, any Voting Rights Act case is likely to end up in the federal courts, which may not favor those suing.
The U.S. Supreme Court has weakened the Voting Rights Act in recent years; the Black Caucus lawsuit against the redistricting plan originally cited one section that was invalidated by the high court in 2013, and which never applied to Michigan in any case.
The odds are that the redistricting plan that was adopted will be the one governing elections for the next ten years, a plan that creates many more competitive seats — including those once automatically assigned to African-Americans.
In terms of democracy, that may be a good thing.
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