Federal judges approve changes to Michigan's redrawn House maps for 2024 election

A federal judicial panel that ordered Michigan's House districts redrawn has found the commission's redrawn maps now comply with constitutional requirements and should be used in this year's House elections.

The panel ruled Wednesday that the Detroit area districts redrawn by the commission have come into compliance with the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and should be adopted for use in the 2024 House elections. The decision overruled objections from the Black Detroiters who filed the initial 2022 challenge of the districts and argued more recently that the redrawn maps could have included more majority-Black districts.

The three judges had ordered in December that seven House districts and six Senate districts be redrawn after finding the initial maps completed in 2021 and used in the 2022 elections were drawn with race as a predominant factor in violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

The commission spent the first few months of the year redrawing the House districts and gathering public feedback on them before submitting the revised map to judges in early March.

"Federal law provides us no basis to reject the commission’s remedial House plan," Judges Raymond Kethledge, Paul Maloney and Janet Neff said in an 11-page decision released Wednesday.

By approving the commission's submitted redraw, the judges declined to take up a separate map drawn behind closed doors by a special master. The judges had the alternative map drawn as a backup in case the commission was unable to develop a map that complied with court orders.

The commission celebrated the decision in a Wednesday statement and said the House redraw process provided "a clear road map" as it moves next to revising the six Senate districts, which will be used in the next Senate election in 2026.

"Despite doubts and concerns raised, the commission demonstrated once again that it could focus on its purpose to draw fair maps with citizen input," said Edward Woods, executive director for the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission.

Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, a former Detroit state lawmaker who has served as spokeswoman for the plaintiffs in the case, said the group is happy to have increased Black Detroit representation in the maps, even if it wasn't to the extent plaintiffs had hoped for.

"In our heart of hearts, most of the plaintiffs were good with moving the needle and increasing the number seats," Gay-Dagnogo said. "We still consider it a victory. I applaud the plaintiffs for standing in the gap for so long on this issue.”

The ultimate plan submitted to the federal court in early March altered 15 Detroit area House districts — the seven ordered redrawn and eight adjacent districts that had to be altered to accommodate the seven that were changed.

The Detroit plaintiffs argued the newly redrawn maps functioned as an "incumbency protection" plan because they drew no incumbent lawmakers into the same districts. The plaintiffs also argued there was undue influence from some of the public participating in the redraw and contended that more majority-Black districts could be included in the new map.

But the judges ultimately dismissed each of those objections.

In response to the plaintiffs' assertions that one public commenter, Christopher Gilmer-Hill, had an outsized influence on the map-drawing process, judges acknowledged that Gilmer-Hill provided commentary and draft maps that were considered and, to some extent, adopted by the commission.

“But that hardly means — as the plaintiffs allege — that the commission ‘outsourced’ its map-drawing function to Gilmer-Hill,” the decision said. “On the record before us here, rather, that allegation is hyperbole.”

The judges also rejected the argument that incumbents had an unfair advantage under the new maps, noting such a conclusion “assumes a degree of passivity among Detroit-area voters” that isn’t supported by the record.

“To the contrary, the record shows an energized electorate that was profoundly unhappy with the racial gerrymander that we later invalidated in our December 2023 order,” according to the judge's decision. “And in six of the seven districts at issue here, African American voters will have markedly more power to elect their candidate of choice in 2024 than they did in 2022.”

On the argument that the commission could have drawn 10 majority-minority districts instead of the eight included in the map, the judges said the map shows no violations of the Voting Rights Act. The commission ran the risk of being accused again of a racial gerrymander if it focused too much on the formation of even more majority-minority districts.

"Indeed, that kind of race-conscious 'maximization' can itself give rise to a racial gerrymander," the judges said.

eleblanc@detroitnews.com