Minority voters are concerned about the power of political bosses and gerrymandering in the state of Maryland, which won a key victory last week in Federal Court. The debate about gerrymandering ratcheted up another notch last week when U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar ordered state Sen. Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch to provide testimony and documents in a lawsuit over the way they redistricted the Sixth Legislative District in 2012.
Until now, Miller and Busch had been hiding behind executive privilege, but more than a few Black candidates suggested the lines had been withdrawn to keep Miller, who is White, and several of his allies in power while suppressing the power of the Black vote.
Bruce Branch (Courtesy Photo)
James Dula, president of the South County Economic Development Corporation (SCEDA) and former chairman of the Prince George’s County Chamber of Commerce and former cabinet member in the Jack Johnson Administration, once tried to mount a campaign against Miller only to find he had been redistricted out of Miller’s District while several of his neighbors across the street remained in.
Today, Dula is organizing voters through social media and other avenues to change the “culture of politics” in the county where he says Black polls are controlled by White party bosses who don’t always have the best interests of the community at heart, at least not in Prince George’s County where winning candidates must get the blessings of party leaders to get on ballots and curry favor with an electorate that many times fails to keep up with the issues.
Several other people are said to be galvanizing support for a group of candidates to mount a serious campaign run against Miller in 2018. “A lot of people want him out because the man has so much power, no one wants to say it publicly. A lot of people are scared of him or to go against him, so everyone just goes along with whatever he says or what he wants to do and then talks about him when he is not around. This time a lot of people are hoping will be different,” Dula said.
Many are buoyed by this first sizeable chink in Miller’s armor. At 74, Miller, who lives in Chesapeake Beach, has represented the 27th District since 1975 and has served as president of Maryland State Senate since January 1987, longer than any other senate president in Maryland history. He has made a lot of Black politicians who supported him and destroyed just as many who have gone against him. Many Black judges owe their starts on the bench to Miller, a respected defense attorney, who helped to get them appointed.
Both Miller and Busch claimed “legislative privilege” to shield their decision making from public scrutiny. But, Judge Bredar said he would not allow it. Discovery of the evidence “lies at the heart of this case,” he said in a court brief. The lawsuit, filed in 2014, argues that Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, which was redrawn to oust U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R) and help elect one of Miller’s top lieutenants, unconstitutionally discriminated against the plaintiffs’ political viewpoint, violating First Amendment rights.
Miller did not respond to the AFRO’s request for comment before press time.
Courts have traditionally deferred to state legislatures in the drawing of district maps, and similar lawsuits have routinely failed. But the U.S. Supreme Court has been treating gerrymandering with increased skepticism, in part because of the computer-aided precision and racial biases in redistricting.
It is also fair to assume, however, that our nation’s increasingly polarized and toxic politics is also a consideration. The South’s Jim Crow laws abridged Blacks from their voting rights for a century after Republicans passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution.
After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, numerous Jim Crow states and counties came under federal supervision. Those landmark civil rights laws were associated with the Democrats, and Black voting patterns shifted from the GOP to the Democratic Party. To increase minority representation in Congress, legislatures began creatively gerrymandering majority-minority districts. This got Blacks into Congress at historic rates, protected White incumbents and helped keep the South under Democratic political control into the 1990s.
After the “Republican Revolution” in 1994, more legislatures came under GOP control, and they began to gerrymander to their advantage after 2002. Their majority-minority districts are being challenged in court, however, for disenfranchising Blacks who vote Democratic. The Supreme Court last fall heard arguments against such districts in Virginia and North Carolina. In Maryland, the argument is not founded on race, but it could be.
Miller argues that Maryland should not go first — that we need a national solution. Ironically, that’s just what this case could force. If the courts at all levels rule against Miller and Busch, it would set a national precedent – and create a mandate – for fair redistricting.