A citizen ballot initiative in Michigan that took redistricting out of the hands of partisan legislators was lauded by elites. But the resulting commission has drawn a new map that could leave this state with no black member of Congress for the first time in 50 years.
Four-term Democrat Brenda Lawrence was the first victim to fall because of these new lines. She denies that this is the reason for her retirement, but she is leaving, opening her seat to Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American in the U.S. House, who will now be moving into a newly drawn 12th District, which includes her Arab American base in Dearborn as well as part of Detroit and Lawrence’s hometown of Southfield.
Had Lawrence remained in Congress, she and Tlaib would have likely faced each other in a primary contest. Tlaib currently holds the seat of the late Rep. John Conyers, the longest-serving black congressman at the time he was drummed out of office for alleged sexual misconduct.
Michigan Republican strategist and Detroit native Jamie Roe said the commission’s decision to take the number of majority-black districts to zero with the idea that placing them in multiple suburban districts as a pathway to open more opportunities for them is at best ill-informed and at worst destructive. “This unprecedented disregard for the Voting Rights Act will assuredly lead to fewer African Americans in office,” said Roe. “It also keeps communities of color from electing their neighbors to serve them in office. It’s a shame.”
Almost three days after a press briefing announcing a lawsuit against Michigan’s redistricting commission, a complaint was filed late Wednesday night alleging that the new congressional and state legislative districts drawn by the commission would diminish black Detroiters’ political power in violation of federal voting rights requirements.
Black lawmakers and citizens from Detroit launched a legal challenge asking the Michigan Supreme Court to order the commission to redraw its maps. The new map eliminates majority-black districts, they argued, a direct violation of the Voting Rights Act. The latest 2020 census data show that Detroit’s population is 78% black.
State representative and former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Shri Thanedar, a state representative and former Democratic gubernatorial candidate said he will be running for the newly drawn 13th Congressional District. Thanedar is the Indian-born chemist and millionaire businessman who got more votes than Gov. Gretchen Whitmer did in Detroit in the 2018 primary.
Sherry Gay-Dagnogo — a Detroit school board member, former state representative, and vocal critic of how the map was drawn — said she too is jumping into that race because it is the right thing to do in terms of the black community being represented by someone who shares its cultural and community ties. “I just had to step up and to fight for equal representation and to be able to advocate for my community,” she said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
Gay-Dagnogo said both white rural and black urban voters face the same challenge and lack of connection to who represents them in Washington when they are marginalized in congressional maps. “It is very important for everyone to have representation, and for me that we as blacks have representation from in our communities,” she said. “If we don’t have one black person elected to Congress in Michigan, that will be unacceptable.”
So she simply jumped into the race.
Since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act, Michigan has had two majority-black districts. “This has been true after every remapping whether it has been done by federal courts, state courts, or the Legislature,” said Roe.
It’s even worse in the state senate, where the new map will also have zero black majority districts despite having five such districts currently. The state House will go from 12 black majority districts to seven. All of this has been done to crack Detroit and spread Democratic votes to suburban districts under the guise of “partisan fairness.”
Even the Michigan Department of Civil Rights has stated that the adopted maps violate the Voting Rights Act, but the commission did nothing to address its concerns.
The city of Detroit has had at least one black member of Congress since the election of Charles Diggs in 1954. Since the adoption of the Voting Rights Act, the state has had two majority-black districts in every map. Now, with Tlaib running in the seat vacated by Lawrence and Thanedar running in the other Detroit seat, it is possible that there will be zero black Democrats from Michigan serving in the House for the first time in 68 years.
That is why Gay-Dagnogo said her primary race with Thanedar, no matter how David and Goliath it is in terms of money and power, is so important.
Republican John James, if he runs for the new majority-white Macomb County 10th Congressional District, may well become the only black House member from Michigan.
If the court case is successful, the court itself cannot draw the new map — it can only order the panel to make changes to force compliance.
The clock is also ticking since the state’s candidate filing deadline for office is in late April. The primary is in August.
Whether by design, ignorance, or influence, this commission, in the name of partisan fairness, has thrown black representation under the bus.
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