DETROIT — Michigan's redistricting commission argued in a court filing late Tuesday that a lawsuit from current and former Detroit lawmakers that seeks to increase the share of Black voters in the new congressional and state legislative districts adopted by the commission could threaten Black voters' representation.
In their legal challenge against the maps, the Detroit Caucus — a group of lawmakers who represent the city in the state Legislature — and other local politicians and Democratic activists criticize the mapmakers' decision to eliminate majority-Black congressional and state Senate districts and reduce the number of those districts in the new state House map.
In its brief responding to the lawsuit, the commission argues that creating majority-Black districts "is not only unnecessary to protect Black equal opportunity, but also harmful."
The lawsuit against the commission would have the commission rely on "arbitrary racial targets" determined without evidence for the share of Black voters in the new districts, lawyers for the commission argued in the Tuesday court filing. By contrast, the commission followed a "data-driven approach" to comply with federal voting rights requirements, examining more than 100 elections to determine the share of Black voters needed in the new districts.
"That is the right way to comply with the (Voting Rights Act), and this Court should not undo the Commission's choices," the commission states in its brief.
Those suing the commission argue that the new district lines would illegally disenfranchise Black voters in violation of the federal law that prohibits districts that deny minority voters an opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. Their lawsuit asks the Michigan Supreme Court to order the commission to redraw the lines.
The commission's voting rights attorney, Bruce Adelson, has told commissioners that the GOP-drawn maps currently in place unnecessarily concentrated Black voters, limiting their influence to only a handful of districts. The commission's maps, meanwhile, appear poised to create greater opportunity for Black voters to elect their preferred candidates, Adelson has said.
An analysis of racial voting patterns conducted on behalf of the commission concluded that majority-Black districts were not needed to create opportunities for Black representation because of significant levels of support among white voters for Black-preferred candidates.
The new districts pairing Detroit neighborhoods with communities in Oakland and Macomb counties are expected to be solidly Democratic, but critics of the commission's maps fear candidates backed by Black voters won't win primary elections.
The commission was challenged, in part, by a lack of statewide primary data it could use to test whether Black-preferred candidates could win Democratic primaries in the new districts.
Lisa Handley, a political scientist hired by the commission, wrote in a report to the group that the large number of white Democrats in Oakland and Wayne counties combined with a lack of statewide primary data posed a challenge for the commission. If white voters don't back Black-preferred candidates in Democratic primaries, Black-preferred candidates may find it harder to win Democratic primaries, she wrote.
"Unfortunately, it is not possible to ascertain exactly how much more difficult it would be — or even if it would be more difficult — given the lack of Democratic primary election data."
There was only one contested statewide primary election - the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial contest - in the previous decade that the commission could use to estimate election results in its districts and in that election, Black voters did not coalesce around a single candidate, the commission's analysis found.
The commission's brief states that Handley's analysis also identified a significant number of recent congressional and state legislative primary elections in which white and Black voters backed the same candidates and that in most primary elections analyzed in which voters were divided along racial lines, the candidate preferred by Black voters won.
The commission adopted the new maps in late December, nearly two months late following a delay in the release of census data used to draw the new lines. The commission is expected to release a final report before the end of the month before the maps are officially enacted into law.
The lines could change ahead of a late April filing deadline for candidates running for office depending on how the Michigan Supreme Court responds to the lawsuit.
