NEW MAPS SPARK DEBATE OVER FAIR CONTESTS
Disagreements over ensuring minorities’ voices are heard
Adam Hollier is a lieutenant in the Army Reserves, a paratrooper, Detroit native, a Democrat and a Black man. He is also a state senator who represents a majority-Black district that stretches across the northeastern edge of his economically battered and resilient hometown. That critical mass of Black voters, Hollier argues, ensures he has a chance to be elected and give voice to people who have long been ignored by the political system.
Rebecca Szetela is a lawyer who describes herself as an independent, and a White woman who chairs Michigan’s new Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. Its job is to redraw the lines of legislative seats to promote more partisan competition in a state where Republicans have dominated the Legislature for decades. One of the best ways to do that, and empower minority voters, Szetela and other commissioners argue, is putting some of the majority-Black neighborhoods in Hollier’s district in other seats, where they may have more say over Michigan’s leadership.
For Hollier’s 2nd Senate District, that means some of its Detroit neighborhoods
would be grafted on to mostly White districts, and his own seat would stretch across Eight Mile Road, the infamous boundary between Detroit and its firstring, majority-White suburbs. Its Black voting-age population would drop to 42 percent.
Hollier, like other Black lawmakers, is furious, saying that move jeopardizes Black elected officials. “By and large, Black people vote for Black people and White people vote for White people,” Hollier said. “It’s just the reality. It’s got nothing to do with me. Draw maps that majority-Black communities can win.”
Whether Hollier is right is at the heart of a heated debate over how to ensure racial and ethnic minority communities can elect the officeholders of their choice. The fight is complicated and wonky. But the stakes are clear: Black, Latino and
Asian Americans are underrepresented in state legislatures.
For decades, the widely accepted strategy was to group together Black voters so they made up a majority in a statehouse or congressional district. That principle was enshrined in the federal Voting Rights Act, which requires the creation of districts with a majority or plurality of Black — or other minority racial or ethnic group — voters in places where the White population has a history of preventing them from electing their chosen representatives.
That strategy was reinforced by partisan politics. Republicans have been happy to draw districts with large numbers of Black voters because Black voters overwhelmingly favor Democrats. The effect was to pack Democrats into just a few districts and leave other parts of the state more safely Republican.
But politics has changed dramatically since the law was passed in 1965. Now, only 18 of the 53 members of the Congressional Black Caucus were elected in districts that are majorityBlack.
“I think we’re in a new age now,” said Bakari Sellers, an African American former South Carolina state legislator. “If you’re talented enough, you can win in a 3035 percent Black district. We can be more competitive around the country.”
But that’s a hard sell to some lawmakers and advocates pushing to put more people of color in statehouses and Congress. Black legislators make up less than 10 percent of state legislators in the U.S., although 14.2 percent of the population is Black, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Latinos are 18.7 percent of the population and just 5.3 percent of state lawmakers. Asians constitute 2 percent of legislators but 7.2 percent of the population.
The risks in balancing the racial composition of districts were illustrated in this month’s Virginia elections. Two Black Democratic delegates narrowly lost their seats in districts that are still majority-Black — but had recently been redrawn to have fewer Black voters. Control of the House of Delegates will come down to two other races that are in recounts.