Judges Say New Michigan House Map Corrects Racial Gerrymandering

Three federal judges have approved new boundaries for some Michigan House of Representatives districts, after they said that a previous map included several House and Senate districts in and around Detroit that were illegally racially gerrymandered.

The panel of judges said in their 11-page opinion that the map, which was proposed earlier this month by the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, can be used for elections later this year. Democrats are seeking to hold onto a majority in the state Senate and regain a majority in the House, where they have the same number of seats as Republicans.

The judges rejected arguments from challengers who said the new map improperly favors incumbents elected under the previous map. They also knocked down claims that the map “possibly” violates the Voting Rights Act by not including more majority-Black districts and that some of the districts were again drawn based on race.

“On the record and objections before us here, federal law provides us no basis to reject the Commission’s remedial House plan,” Judges Raymond M. Kethledge, Paul L. Maloney, and Janet T. Neff wrote in the opinion released Wednesday.

The new map came after the judges deemed unconstitutional seven of the state House districts and six state Senate districts drawn in 2021. The previous map minimized Black voting age population in a way that denied Black voters the ability to select minority candidates in primaries, the judges had ruled.

The new House map “departs significantly” from the rejected one, according to the opinion. It completely redrew six of the seven districts at issue, changed the boundaries for the seventh, and redid the boundaries of eight other Detroit-area districts to accommodate for the other changes.

Three of the seven districts are now majority Black, compared to none in the previous map, the opinion noted.

The commission is expected to draw a new state Senate map later this year.

Neither the commission nor its attorney immediately responded to an email Thursday. However, commission Executive Director Edward Woods III said in a statement to The Detroit News that “despite doubts and concerns raised, the commission demonstrated once again that it could focus on its purpose to draw fair maps with citizen input.”

John J. Bursch of Bursch Law PLLC, who represents the challengers, said in an email that his clients “continue to believe that Detroit voters would be better served by a House map that does not protect all the incumbents elected under the racially gerrymandered map.

“That said, we are grateful to the three-judge panel for vindicating Plaintiffs’ rights and a process that resulted in a significantly improved map,” Bursch continued.

Election law experts have said a ruling favorable to the challengers in this case could help Republicans challenge similar maps drawn by Democrats or citizen commissions around cities and large suburbs, where cross-over voting benefits liberal candidates.

The challengers are also represented by Clark Hill PLC. The commission is represented by Fink Bressack and BakerHostetler.

The case is Agee v. Benson, W.D. Mich., No. 1:22-cv-00272, 3/27/24.