Detroit lawmakers to sue redistricting commission, allege violation of Voting Rights Act
Current and former Detroit lawmakers said Monday they plan to sue Michigan's redistricting commission, alleging that the new congressional and state legislative maps adopted by the group last week would illegally disenfranchise Black voters.
The maps adopted by Michigan's citizen-led, independent redistricting commission eliminate majority-Black congressional and state Senate districts that currently run through Detroit and reduce the number of Detroit majority-Black districts in the new state House map.
The lawsuit was expected to be filed either late Monday night or Tuesday morning in the Michigan Supreme Court.
During a news briefing Monday morning, Nabih Ayad, the attorney who will represent the plaintiffs, argued that the new lines violate the Voting Rights Act, the federal law that prohibits racially discriminatory voting districts that deny minority voters an opportunity to elect their preferred candidates.
The lawsuit seeks to suspend the implementation of the new maps and asks the court to order the commission to redraw them, Ayad said.
"I felt that it was imperative that we file a lawsuit immediately," said Rep. Tenisha Yancey, D-Harper Woods, who planned to join the lawsuit as a plaintiff. Yancey said she will not be running in 2022 because of term limits but wanted to support those running in 2022 to represent Detroiters.
During Monday's briefing, expected plaintiffs in the lawsuit called on Democrats to support the legal challenge, arguing that Michigan Democrats should not embrace maps that give them a chance to win congressional and legislative majorities at the expense of Black voters' representation.
"Don’t leave us out in the rain because you simply want a majority," said former state Rep. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, D-Detroit, an expected plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The commission's analysis of racial voting patterns in Michigan over the past decade found that in counties home to large Black populations, white voters consistently provided support for Black-preferred candidates.
Based on that analysis, the commission’s voting rights attorney, Bruce Adelson, advised the commission that it did not need to draw majority-minority districts to comply with federal voting rights requirements.
More: Michigan redistricting commission votes on new maps mark a historic first
More: Michigan redistricting commission adopts new state legislative maps
Before it began drawing its maps, Adelson advised the commission to fix Detroit districts that packed Black voters, referencing a form of gerrymandering in which one group of voters is heavily concentrated in a handful of districts where they are all but guaranteed to see their preferred candidates elected but their influence is removed from surrounding communities.
He pointed to three state House districts in place today that are home to a 90% Black voting age population.
"I have never drafted, approved, endorsed a 90%-plus majority-minority district," he told the commissioners in September.
Current and former Detroit lawmakers have argued for months that the new districts now go too far in the other direction, thinly spreading Black voters across many districts and diminishing their opportunity to elect their preferred candidates.
And plaintiffs in the lawsuit will argue that the new maps dilute Black voters' representation by reducing the share of the Black voting age population in the new districts, Ayad said.
Unlike the state legislative maps currently in place, the new districts cross 8 Mile Road, combining majority-Black neighborhoods in Detroit with predominantly white suburban communities in Oakland and Macomb counties.
Detroit lawmakers have argued that Black candidates from the city would struggle to win primary elections in the new districts. They say that the solidly Democratic districts would see Democratic voters in the city and suburbs back different candidates, and argue that the commission failed to closely examine state legislative primary elections to better understand racial voting patterns.
"We could potentially have people representing our community that don’t have the commitment to our city," said Gay-Dagnogo. "Detroit deserves to have Black leadership."
In response to concerns about primary elections in the new districts, Adelson has countered that the commission was only able to create estimates for racial voting patterns in its new districts for one Democratic primary election, the single contested statewide Democratic gubernatorial primary race in 2018. That election didn’t show Black voters coalescing around a single preferred candidate, Adelson said.
Adelson acknowledged that the commission worked from limited data. "But that’s the universe that we’re operating in," he said.
Before the final vote, independent commissioner Anthony Eid said the new lines mark an improvement from the lines in place when it comes to providing an opportunity for effective minority representation. Some commissioners expressed last-minute reservations. Rebecca Szetela, the commission’s independent chair, said she fears the new districts might not have enough Black voters to give them an opportunity to elect their preferred candidates but said she trusted Adelson’s advice.
Clara Hendrickson fact-checks Michigan issues and politics as a corps member with Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Make a tax-deductible contribution to support her work at bit.ly/freepRFA. Contact her at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on Twitter @clarajanehen.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit lawmakers to sue Michigan's redistricting commission over maps
