Court: Election Redistricting To Favor Dems Has Racial Consequences

The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission , which just happened to redraw districts that ended up (quelle surprise) being heavily in favor of Democrats, drew some ire as the resulting districts diluted Blacks into multiple districts.  This dilution prevented Blacks from being assured of having a lock on Blacks as representatives in some districts that previously were assured of having a Black representative as a lock.

The Detroit Free Press: Court orders metro Detroit legislative maps redrawn

Now, the cracking and redistricting they are complaining about wasn't actually done to "prevent Black people from voting for the candidates of their choice"  it was about ensuring Democrats all won those seats. 

Putting Black-majority areas with their voters that vote 90%+ Democrat into other previously less partisan district ensured that result, even as it made Blacks not a majority in each of these districts. This meant in the Dem primaries a Black candidate wasn't assured of winning. Such lack of a racial lock is apparently bad. In short in their pursuit of a lock for the Dems (for noble, non-partisan reasons, of course), the Commission ticked off a key Dem constituency.

 Note, the results of the un-packing being complained about in the article:

The panel ordered the commission to redraw the following districts:

• House District 1, currently represented by state Rep. Tyrone Carter, D-Detroit.
• House District 7, currently represented by state Rep. Helena Scott, D-Detroit.
• House District 8, currently represented by state Rep. Mike McFall, D-Hazel Park.
• House District 10, currently represented by state Rep. Joe Tate, D-Detroit.
• House District 11, currently represented by state Rep. Veronica Paiz, D-Harper Woods.
• House District 12, currently represented by state Rep. Kimberly Edwards, D-Eastpointe.
• House District 14, currently represented by state Rep. Donavan McKinney, D-Detroit.
• Senate District 1, currently represented by state Sen. Erika Geiss, D-Detroit.
• Senate District 3, currently represented by state Sen. Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit.
• Senate District 6, currently represented by state Sen. Mary Cavanagh, D-Redford Township.
• Senate District 8, currently represented by state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak.
• State Senate District 10, currently represented by state Sen. Paul Wojno, D-Warren.
• State Senate District 11, currently represented by state Sen. Veronica Klinefelt, D-Eastpointe.

See how there's not a single, solitary R in that list?   

This is the result of  the creation of solid D-majorities in those districts by filtering Blacks into each to create solid D-safe districts instead of keeping solidly Black districts.

In short, the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission screwed up by not simply coming out and stating the truth - this wasn't racially motivated, it was instead very politically motivated to create Democrat-safe districts, which in doing so got rid of Black majority districts to spread that solid D-voting bloc around.

In short, it was gerrymandering of the very sort they bemoaned happening before, but since it helped the Ds, so it was the noble kind of gerrymander.

It's likely the redrawing will again create districts that favor Blacks by race (I had thought that doing things based on race was bad, but you know apparently locking things up for certain races is just ducky). 

It may even create a district where Republicans have at least a shot at winning, and my current gerrymandered (but for the best of intentions, right?) district which is in the list ordered to be redrawn, may even stop being completely overwhelmed by Detroit voters.  

One can hope for that anyways.