Michigan Legislative Maps May Violate Voting Rights Act, Says Three-Judge Panel
The Ballenger Report told you so two months ago. Now it’s happened.
Back in June, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that called into question whether the current maps drawn up for the state Senate and House of Representatives by the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) violate federal law.
Do they trample on the federal Voting Rights Act? Very possibly, and if so the MICRC may have to go back to work and draft new district lines for at least a portion of the maps in time for the 2024 election.
That’s because, Tuesday of this week, a federal lawsuit arguing that Michigan’s new state legislative districts illegally disenfranchise Black voters must proceed to a “trial” after a court ruling issued by a three-judge panel. The legal challenge by a group of metro Detroit residents followed a similar one rejected by the Michigan Supreme Court.
U.S. Circuit Court Judge Raymond Kethledge wrote the order on behalf of the panel that will allow some of the challenges to the new district lines to proceed to trial while giving others a pass for now.
What would this kind of trial be like? Probably Kethledge will soon set a briefing schedule in which both the plaintiffs and defendants would give depositions to the judges, after which a more formal hearing would be held after which the troika of black robes would issue a decision on what if anything should be done. It may be significant that the judges have already dismissed a motion by the defense for summary judgment, meaning they want to consider the case that the Michigan Supreme Court, in a partisan 4-3 vote, rejected without even looking at it.
At issue in the trial will be “whether the Commission went too far in lowering black voter percentages in Detroit-area districts,” Kethledge wrote. The three-judge panel are all technically appointees of former President George W. Bush, a Republican, although one of the judges, Janet Neff, is a Democrat named as part of a political deal between the White House and the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate.
The state legislative maps adopted by the MICRC ran parts of the city of Detroit — a majority-Black city — into surrounding suburban communities, like spokes on a wheel. The maps have NO Congressional majority-minority districts (ZERO) in a state that is roughly 15% African-American. There are NO state Senate majority-minority districts (ZERO) and only six state House majority-minority districts. Those maps stand in contrast to the 2011 redistricting plans adopted by the Legislature, which contained TWO majority-minority Congressional districts, FIVE state Senate majority-minority districts and 12 state House majority-minority districts. The maps in effect between 2002 and 2012 were similarly constructed.
But Democrats are happy with the maps — it helped them secure control of both chambers of the state Legislature for the first time in 40 years.
Before the MICRC approved the maps, civil rights activists and Detroit lawmakers had raised concerns that the new lines violated federal voting rights requirements to provide voters belonging to protected racial minorities a fair chance to nominate and elect one of their own.
During the mapping process, the commission’s legal counsel and alleged “experts” on voting rights said that districts drawn by Republicans a decade ago (and earlier) concentrated Black voters in Detroit in a handful of districts, limiting their electoral influence. The commission’s consultants instructed the novice mappers to “fix” maps they said had “packed” minority voters.
The new district lines that were then drawn by the MICRC were supposed to end gerrymandering in Michigan, according to Voters Not Politicians (VNP), the election reform activists who petitioned for a statewide ballot proposal to amend the state’s constitution in 2018. VNP claimed the creation of a new independent commission to draw new maps every 10 years would terminate the practice of drawing voting districts to benefit one political party (in this case, the Republicans).
However, the results of the August 8 primary prompted renewed concerns that the new district lines pose a threat to Black representation. In other words, the new maps may turn out to be gerrymandering simply by different means, trampling on African-Americans and ignoring the controversial “communities of interest” criterion in order to improve Democrats’ chances of winning. If so, mission accomplished.
Kethledge cited four state Senate districts and five state House districts in particular:
- Senate District 1 currently represented by state Sen. Erika Geiss, D-Taylor
- Senate District 3 currently represented by state Sen. Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit
- Senate District 6 currently represented by state Sen. Mary Cavanagh, D-Redford Township
- Senate District 8 currently represented by state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak
- House District 1 currently represented by state Rep. Tyrone Carter, D-Detroit
- House District 7 currently represented by state Rep. Helena Scott, D-Detroit
- House District 10 currently represented by state Rep. Joe Tate, D-Detroit
- House District 12 currently represented by state Rep. Kimberly Edwards, D-Eastpointe
- House District 14 currently represented by state Rep. Donavan McKinney, D-Detroit
Two of the senators are white (in the 6th and 8th districts), one is Asian-American (in the 3rd), and one Black (the 1st). All of the representatives are Black.
However, the MICRC, or whichever other entity might draw any new maps, may find that it’s impossible to confine their work to just those nine districts. Other lines may be affected in adjacent districts, although it’s likely any changes would be confined to Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties.
All this has unfolded because, back in June, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a close 5-4 vote, unexpectedly held that the Alabama Congressional plan that was in place for the 2022 election violated Section 2 of the federal VRA. The Supremes ruled that Alabama must adopt a plan for 2024 that contains two districts with a majority of racial minorities instead of just one. Right now, 27% of Alabama’s population is African-American, yet only one of its seven CDs (about 14%) is majority-minority.
The Court also held that Louisiana’s Congressional district map must similarly be revised to create two majority-minority districts instead of one. About one-third of Louisiana’s population is Black, but a disproportionate number (five) of its six CDs have a non-Black majority.
The verdict was viewed as a cause for celebration by most Democratic, liberal and progressive observers and activists around the country. In Michigan, however, the result could well produce an outcome they won’t like.
Naturally, all this appears to be good news for each of the 13 Redistricting Commissioners — it would seem to justify that their approximately $55,700 annualized salary (about 35% of the Governor’s pay) will continue on indefinitely. That’s because the MICRC is likely to be the mechanism to adopt any remedial plan resulting from a court order, unless the judges opt to appoint a special master as happened in 1991.
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This article incorrectly identifies Sixth District Michigan Senator Mary Cavanagh of Redford Township as black.
I agree that the Voting Rights Act was likely violated by the Redistricting Commission – but the next question would be is what is the proper remedy? The appointment of a special master would likely appear to be a better remedial measure than sending the matter back to the same public body that caused the problem in the first place.
Judge Kethledge is a GOP presidential appointee whose nomination to the federal bench had been stalled previously by Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. He is from Michigan.
I must be reading the article incorrectly as it appears to me that the article stresses that Ms. Cavanagh is white: “Two of the senators are white (in the 6th and 8th districts)…” The rest of the article is in keeping with Bill’s almost always spot on analysis, and here we have the law of “unintended consequences” (I think unintended?).
The Black community has every right to be disheartened by the maps, and in fact that may well contribute to some of the angst and backlash in the community against the Democratic Party.
While the maps provided Michigan citizens with a very highly capable and qualified Democrat Speaker, they disenfranchised a significant sector of the Black community’s voice in Congress. No wonder Hill Harper was encouraged to run. Whether he sticks with it or not is another question. But the party of John Conyers and recently the terrifc Brenda Lawrence seems to have ignored their vital constituency in the euphoria of their control of the legislature.
You are reading the article correctly as it has been apparently been rectified following my astute posted comment about Sen. Cavanagh.
The black community has a voice in United States Congress by way of John James in the 10th District.
Black majority federal congressional districts are not gone – one elected Rashida Tlaib, a progressive Arab Muslim Democrat over several black primary candidate in 2022 and a later a GOP nominee that same year. Brenda Lawrence wisely chose not to challenge Tlaib when they were redistricted onto the same turf.
The Michigan House Majority Floor Leader is from a black majority state house district. He is a Yemeni-American progressive liberal – Abraham Aiyash.
“Race loyalty” is a thing of the past in Michigan elections – ask Mayor Michael Duggan who won in a city that has over 90% minority residents.
It is reasonable to ask whether the Voting Rights Act ought to be interpreted in 2023 the same way is was in 1973. The African-American population is far more diffuse now, geographically, which makes majority-minority districts much harder to engineer.
In 1966 in the United States Supreme Court decision in South Carolina vs Katzenbach the Court held that the 15th Amendment authorized the Act of Congress to protect minorities in the exercise of their enfranchisement rights.
In 2013, the United States Supreme Court in Shelby County vs Holder struck down a number of provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) due to the fact that the demographic statistics that existed at the time of its passage and signing into law did not exist today and rendering those offending provisions to be unconstitutional.
There is a question today whether large swaths of the VRA should still be enforced given the change in demographics and citizen attitudes.
Well. Huh. I thought we were all Americans. What does ethnicity have to do with being an American? In America, they say “systemic racism” is a problem. Aren’t the cities where they say systemic racism holds the Black Man down being administered by members of the Democrat Party? Hmmm. Liberals think guns are a problem, but Fentanyl kills hundreds of thousands of Americans. Doctors are necessary, but their mistakes kill up to 200,000 of their patients per year. Firearms protect human life maybe up to a half-million times a year, but you never hear about it. Journalism in the Twenty-First century is dead. If anything of a liberal bent comes before the Michigan Supreme Court, it will be rubber-stamped with the latest opinion of the AG.
Nice article, Bill. Seems an earlier TBR was a wee bit prescient on this issue. Again.
I could not find the decision on the 6th circuit website, but with my computer skills, that’s not surprising. I was curious how they dealt with the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision as well as the US District Court’s decision.
If the 6th circuit panel is remanding it back to District Court for a trial, I would be curious who the judge would be, the one whose earlier decision was appealed or another judge picked at random.
You are right in that any redistricting will have to encompass more than the handful of districts cited by Judge Kethledge and should (my opinion) encompass Congressional districts as well – assuming there is a Federal suit challenging them.
I am sure the MICRC will be more than happy to collect their checks again, though will it be with Mr. Eid still on the panel? But if the judges want a special master(s) for this, I suggest you and me. Give us a pair of computers, some census data, a case of good Michigan beer and some pizza, we should have satisfactory lines drawn up in 2 or 3 days. An extra day or two if they want us to do the Congressional districts. Though I suspect that if we did, there would be many politicians and other political types who may never send us Christmas cards again.
I voted for reapportionment, anticipating rectangular districts roughly following existing governmental lines like county and city borders. Let the chips fall where they may. Instead, we just got more interest group gerrymandering,only by different gerymanderers.. Now the legal challenge comes from those who want the next gerrymandering to help their interest group. Looks like a wasted opportunity getting even worse.
Agree 100%!
The gerrymandering geniuses figured out that they could exploit election district boundaries so as to extend GOP-leaning suburban districts into Detroit and pick up bulk quantities of Democratic votes.
Republican Senator Mike McDonald of northern Macomb County was victimized in this manner and lost his seat.