Why concerns about the 13th Congressional District race — and Michigan’s political maps — are misdirected
Some are understandably upset with recent election results and the state’s electoral maps. They should be upset with our voting system.
If there’s one story line that has captured Detroiters attention in the last year, it’s one of racial representation. Journalists, politicos and a portion of Detroit’s general public are concerned with losing Black representation in Congress after having it for almost 70 years. That’s because millionaire Democratic candidate Shri Thanedar (who is Indian American) is poised to win the 13th Congressional District seat — which covers Detroit — after defeating several Black candidates who had their votes split.
The concern of losing Black representation in Congress is understandable.
Representation based on race means something everywhere in America, but especially in a majority Black city like Detroit. In a country where so many sentiments and actual policies are threaded with anti-Blackness, and in a city that has particularly experienced that same anti-Black violence, it makes sense that, especially as particular city neighborhoods get whiter, wealthier and more exclusive, some Black residents — and much of the Black political class — are concerned with the 13th Congressional District results. Many are upset with specific Black Democratic candidates who likely had no real shot of scoring the Democratic nomination, and instead simply played spoiler.
Furthermore, many of the same people who wanted different results were fearful of losing Black representation in higher political office months prior to the midterms.
In January, the Michigan Democratic Party Black Caucus filed a lawsuit against the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission for violating the Voting Rights Act because none of the southeast Michigan district maps included a 50% nonwhite resident threshold. The case was dismissed by the Michigan Supreme Court, but the sentiment was significant — African Americans were worried about being “cracked” to the point where the voter base would be diluted with other voters who have different interests.
But much of this concern belies the political reality. Michigan’s new political maps give Democrats in general a better chance of winning, and therefore more opportunity for political representation (if not by race, by policy preferences), particularly in the state legislature. What’s more, true ire should turn not toward the too-many individuals who ran in a crowded 13th district primary, but, rather, at the electoral system that does not allow for a fairer electoral voting system that includes ranked-choice voting.
Democrats could win the state Senate for the first time in decades — that’s good for Black voters
For years, Michigan’s political maps had been gerrymandered, and it gave state Republicans large advantages over their Democratic challengers. In the 2016 state House races, Republicans were favored by 10.1 additional percentage points and 15.5 percentage points in Congressional races, according to Bridge Michigan reporting.
Republican tilted the filed to their advantage by “packing” Democratic (and often Black) voters into singular districts, thereby ensuring that the surrounding districts were easily won by Republicans. In 2018, the consequences of this were clear: despite getting less than half the votes in state legislative races, Republicans had clear majorities in both the state Senate and state House. But these scenarios appear to no longer be viable for either political party.
After a strong, grass-roots led campaign to end gerrymandering in the state, and a lot of drawing different political maps by an independent commission, Michigan now has new political maps.
We don’t yet know what those maps will yield in terms of new political representatives, but we know that they’ve already made races a lot fairer. That’s because for the first time since Ronald Reagan held office, Democrats have a chance to win a majority in the state Senate. As Bridge Michigan’s Lauren Gibbons told MichMash host Cheyna Roth, “We saw the maps redrawn and in the state Senate that meant, that on paper, the path to a majority is very, very close.”
The logical consequences are not difficult to follow. Because most Black voters are Democrats, having a Democratic majority in the state legislature (which would allow Governor Gretchen Whitmer, if she wins, to implement a lot of her agenda), would improve the lives of Black residents. This is only even a possibility because of Michigan’s new political maps, which no longer tilt the field of balance in favor of Republicans.
Michigan’s political maps are not packing Black voters in southeast Michigan. Instead, now people argue that Black votes are being cracked — separated, that is — and diluted from actualizing political power in particular districts. But in the case where this may have happened — the 13th Congressional District seat — the results could have been avoidable if the voting process was more democratic. That is, if ranked-choice voting was implemented, as is happening in more places around the country, the 13th would likely be represented by an African American.
Ranked-choice voting would solve 13th Congressional district representation concerns
The changed political maps give us the newly drawn 13th Congressional District, where so much controversy has been directed. Again, people are understandably upset that there likely won’t be a Black representative from Detroit heading to Congress. But the way to avoid that problem isn’t to undo Michigan’s new political maps — it’s to make our electoral system fairer.
The simplest way to do that is to implement a ranked-choice voting system. Acknowledging that this would be almost impossible to implement with such slim Democratic majorities in Congress, it’s, nonetheless, the best option for voters.
Consider this: Democratic candidate Shri Thanedar didn’t receive a majority of votes. In fact, he didn’t even receive more votes than the next two candidates behind him when you aggregate their votes together. That means that if a ranked-choice system was implemented, we’d likely be looking at either Adam Hollier or Portia Roberson as the Democratic nominees.
There’s not much Detroiters can do about this mess for now. As noted, Congress is the only body that can enact ranked-choice voting for Congressional votes. But that doesn’t mean that the loss of a Black representative in Congress is the fault of the many Black candidates vying for the seat. Rather, it’s the system that allowed someone to win a primary with such few votes. Someone more popular should be winning our state and Congressional seats. A ranked-choice voting system would ensure that’s truer than things stand now.
