Pundit Monday: Echoes In Michigan Of the Supreme Court Voting Rights Act Decision

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 05/11/2026) The recent Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais has sent some states across the nation racing to redistrict their maps. With the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC), though, Michigan can’t do so without another constitutional amendment. MIRS asked several people questions regarding the recent decision to get their opinion.

The Michigan Legislative Black Caucus and Detroit Caucus came out on Monday to condemn the Legislature in Tennessee for being the latest state to pass new U.S. Congressional maps that split the majority minority district of Memphis into three Republican districts. The result is expected to be the loss of Tennessee's only Black representative.

The MICRC had to redraw districts in 2024 after a federal court found the panel had used racial data around Detroit when redrawing the district maps in 2021.

MIRS News asked five pundits if the U.S. Supreme Court decision were in place in 2024 if the MICRC would have to redraw those maps:

Question: Would the original 2021 district lines have been upheld in Michigan if the recent SCOTUS decision had been in place?

Jeff Timmer, Partner at Two Rivers Public Affairs; and Mark Brewer, who has worked on redistricting, offered a succinct “No.”

Rebecca Szetela, who served on the inaugural MICRC, said, “The 2021 districts would have unquestionably been struck down if the recent Louisiana v. Callais SCOTUS case had been in place. The MICRC's record is indisputable: At the direction of its Voting Rights counsel and General Counsel, the MICRC relied heavily on race during its initial map-drawing in 2021. This was true for all three maps drawn by the Commission in 2021 — the U.S. Congressional, State House and State Senate maps. Although a limited number of districts in the 2021 State House and State Senate maps were redrawn in 2024 following the Agee v. Benson decision, race was also considered in 2024 when those districts were redrawn, so even those districts may not have been upheld if Louisiana v. Callais was in place back in 2024."

Michael Pattwell, a lawyer with Clark Hill: “No. On the 14th Amendment racial gerrymander claim — Callais would have strengthened the Agee plaintiffs' position, not weakened it. The core holding in Agee was that the MICRC drew districts with race as the predominant factor without adequate justification. Callais reinforces that proposition."

Robert LaBrant, a retired lawyer who worked on redistricting prior to the 2018 constitutional ballot passage that created the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission: “The original commission plan would have been upheld, and it wouldn’t have resulted in a redrawing of those district lines. The decision challenging the 2021 plan was that there was an impermissible packing of African Americans that required these districts to extend across 8 Mile and go into southern Oakland or southern Macomb County. My answer would be that there would not have been a successful challenge had the Louisiana litigation ben in place when that 2021 plan was challenged.'

Q: What does the SCOTUS decision mean to the MICRC redraw in 2031?

Brewer: “Under the text of the State Constitution, MICRC must still comply with the VRA as interpreted in Callais and any subsequent VRA and federal constitutional developments."

Szetela: “The Louisiana v. Callais decision means that there will be extremely limited circumstances under which a future Commission can consider race when drawing districts in 2031. Any Voting Rights compliance analysis will be complicated by the requirement to separate race from party affiliation as well as the obligation to show present-day intentional discrimination in order for Voting Rights Act racial considerations to be entertained. Given the difficulties in making a showing that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is implicated, it’s likely that a future Commission will be constrained to drawing maps based upon the other seven ranked criteria, such as communities of interest, equal population and partisan fairness.”

Pattwell: “Article IV, Section 6(13) of the Michigan Constitution requires that the MICRC follow a number of redistricting criteria including, at the top of the hierarchy, compliance with the VRA. Under Callais, however, the MICRC is required to draw a race-blind map before engaging in any VRA analysis. Only then will the MICRC apply the revised Gingles factors to assess whether there is a compelling VRA interest in deviating from a race-blind map drawn in accordance with traditional redistricting criteria.”

LaBrant: "(A future MICRC will) basically draw districts based upon communities of interest. I have maintained communities of interest is no standard at all. It's just kind of a subjective thing. Mark Grebner in commenting upon the communities of interest standard, basically called it a ‘Will ‘O the Wisp.’ It means it could mean anything that a majority of the commissioners want it to be. I think in reality, there'd be nothing to restrict the commission from drawing district boundaries, and as long as they could, basically, with a straight face say that there is a community of interest somehow, is the basis for the way they drew the district lines, they would probably be able to get away with it.”

Timmer: "I must note that the MICRC and the entire state constitution could be altered prior to the next Census if voters do not reject Proposal 1 this fall. However, if the 2018 amendment creating the MICRC remains unchanged, the language is clear that the commission is required to comply with the VRA and other federal laws (as they will exist in 2031)."

Q: Does the SCOTUS decision open the MICRC up to more political influence?

Szetela: “I expect the degree of political influence to remain the same. The MICRC was not immune from political influence in either 2021 or 2024 and it will not be immune in the future. Redistricting will always be political, and candidates, incumbents, and parties will attempt to influence the drawing of districts for their own benefit. The creation of the MICRC did not remove political influence from redistricting.”

Pattwell: “It should not. First, that the Supreme Court will not police partisan gerrymandering is old news. Second, the Michigan Constitution’s partisan fairness criteria does not countenance partisan gerrymandering; it prohibits a ‘disproportionate advantage.’ I find it hard to believe that the Michigan voters passing Proposal 2018-2 wanted to see more political influence in redistricting. In fact, the very architecture of Article IV, Section 6 (i.e., eligibility restrictions, balanced composition, and transparency mandates) is anti-gerrymandering by design. More political influence would be a disservice to Michigan.”

LaBrant: “I think that the way the Constitutional amendment was drafted in 2018 created a situation where interested persons applied to serve on the independent redistricting commission and the people that were selected were people that said, ‘I'm a Democrat,’ or ‘I'm a Republican,’ or ‘I'm of no party affiliation.' … That's not going to change unless there's a change in the Constitutional amendment itself. And I don't see that as a likely occurrence, and it certainly isn't going to come because of that Supreme Court decision.”

Timmer: “No, presuming there is no Con Con beginning in 2027. The current language of Article IV § 6 shields them from political actors and prohibits partisan gerrymandering.”

Brewer: “No, because under the text of the State Constitution the MICRC is still subject to the restrictions on partisan gerrymandering and all the other redistricting criteria.”