This redistricting cycle will see Michigan losing a seat from its Congressional delegation. De rigeur in these situations is to combine two districts controlled by the opposing party, forcing the two incumbents into a primary that only one of them can win. Ideally, you hope that one of these districts is represented by a long-time Congressional veteran, the other represented by a relative newcomer and rising star in the other party. These primary races tend not to be kind to the newbies, so combining districts typically serves to short-circuit otherwise promising political careers. The gerrymandering party is left with one Congressperson they’ve dealt with for decades and a former Congressperson with lots of potential and nowhere to go but down.
Under the usual run of things, those districts in Michigan would be the 13th and 14th, which will be represented in the upcoming 112th Congress by freshman Congressman Hansen Clarke and born-in-a-committee-hearing Capitol Hill veteran John Conyers, respectively. However, because these districts are Michigan’s only majority-minority districts, this is not the usual run of things. A full explanation of majority-minority districts can be found here, but the relevant information about them is that they’re one of the tools created by the Voting Rights Act to prevent minorities from being disenfranchised through redistricting.
Assuming that creating these districts can be done without completely riding roughshod over the rest of the considerations that are supposed to be taken into account during redistricting (municipal borders, township borders, county borders, natural geographic boundaries, etc.), these districts should exist in roughly the same percentage as the state’s minority population. Currently, Michigan’s black population is 14%; if the 13th and 14th districts stay majority-minority and Michigan’s number of seats drops to 14, majority-minority districts would be 2 / 14, or 14.3%. If either the 13th or 14th ceases to be majority-minority, that percentage would fall to 7.1%. Democrats in Michigan are itching to challenge the Republican redistricting plan in federal court, and an alleged violation of a federal law like the VRA would provide just that opportunity. Republicans, having just retaken a majority on the Michigan Supreme Court, will do whatever it takes to ensure that what legal challenges are brought to the new redistricting plan remain in the state court system.
The next best set of Democratic incumbents to push into the same district is Sander Levin (District 12) and Gary Peters (District 9). Levin is currently 79 years old, and will start his 14th term in January; Peters turned 52 earlier this month and is just entering his second term. The main reason the strategy of putting these two together works is geography. Levin lives in the sliver of Royal Oak that lies in the 12th district (indeed, he’s the reason the sliver exists), with the remainder falling in the 9th. All the Republicans would have to do to combine their districts would be to push the 9th District boundary south to the Royal Oak city limits. Since municipal boundaries should be taken into account during redistricting, they could even say they’re only making the move to do a better job of following the rules.
What’s to happen with the rest of the 12th district? Much of it will likely be split between the 13th and 14th. These latter districts cover Detroit, which has lost quite a bit more population than the rest of the state, and particularly the metropolitan area. To maintain population parity between districts, the 13th and 14th will need to add population; to retain majority-minority status, the areas added will need to have a sizable minority population. That makes areas currently in the 12th such as Southfield (65% black), Oak Park (51% black), and Eastpointe (25% black) prime targets to be folded into the 13th and 14th.
That still leaves a substantial portion of the 12th district – primarily the cities of Warren and St. Clair Shores, as well as Clinton Township. How the Republicans split up these areas could get interesting, particularly as it involves where they’ll put Warren. Warren is Michigan’s third most populous city, and it tends to vote strongly Democratic. Putting it into the 9th closes the door to any reasonable chance the Republicans would have at the seat in the foreseeable future – especially when you consider that adding Warren means subtracting elsewhere. In the 9th district, “elsewhere” is pretty much guaranteed to be more Republican than Warren.
The 10th district has been a lock for a Republican blowout for a while, but the addition of Warren (and the subtraction of other, likely Republican, areas) could be a game-changer. Warren has a population of just over 130,000 and consistently turns out 20,000 more Democrats than Republicans in Congressional races. Whatever areas the 10th would lose would likely be at least as Republican as Warren is Democratic. Doing the math means a net loss of at least 40,000 votes for Candice Miller in the 10th. That wouldn’t turn the election, necessarily, but it would tighten it up enough to attract a top-tier Democratic challenger, and probably an influx of cash and staff from the DCCC – which might do the trick.
Best guess: they put Warren in the 9th, concede the district for the next decade, and stay content to turn their 1-2 record in the 9th, 10th, and 12th into a 1-1 tie.
If anyone wants to look at the data and check my conclusions, these sites are a good place to start:
City-by-city election return data: http://miboecfr.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cfr/precinct_srch.cgi
A Congressional district map: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=MI
Information on cities' racial composition: http://www.city-data.com/
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