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In 2001, the GOP controlled both houses of the legislature and the governorship, which is why the party could push through its partisan redistricting plan. It wouldn't have taken too much additional pushing to also repeal the 1998 law that you mention and make the plan even better for the GOP.

The two black-majority CDs were around 69%-70% black back in 2000, so had the legislature drawn them to be over 65% black (as opposed to 61% black, as they are today) it would have been arguably required by the VRA. Remember, the VRA prohibits retrogression (or whatever it is that they call reducing the ability of minorities to elect the representative of their choice), and it has long been argued that due to lower turnout among minorities that having a majority-minority district is not enough.

If MI loses a seat in 2010, its congressional districts will have around 736,000 persons. It will be impossible to draw two 60%-black CDs entirely within Wayne County. If the GOP combines the heaviest Democrat parts of the Detroit area to draw two urban-suburban CDs that are 55% black and a third urban-suburban CD that is, say, 35% black, I seriously doubt that the DOJ or a court will strike down such a plan.

As for Walberg's 7th CD, I know that his 3rd-tier opponent got 46%. The district gave President Bush 51% in 2000 and 54% in 2004, so it's not exactly Ottawa County there, and there was some lingering animosity from Schwarz and his RINO backers for having been defeated in the primary, not to mention the fact that DeVos's candidacy tanked at the end. Of course, it was also a terrible election for the GOP just about nationwide, and socially conservative, economically populist areas such as the ones in the MI-07 were exactly the places where many who voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 turned their backs on the GOP in 2006 (see also the PA-04, KS-02, PA-10, NC-11, IN-02, IN-08, IN-09, IA-01, MN-01, OH-18, etc.). The Democrats have got to be kicking themselves for not running a good candidate in the district (there were several Dem state senators and state reps, some of them social conservatives, who probably would have won under the circumstances), but 2008 will be a lot tougher election for the Democrats to win that seat, since turnout should favor conservatives in that district in a presidential year (unless a RINO like Rudy gets the GOP nomination, in which case we may see low turnout among conservatives.

Remember, the VRA prohibits retrogression (or whatever it is that they call reducing the ability of minorities to elect the representative of their choice), and it has long been argued that due to lower turnout among minorities that having a majority-minority district is not enough.

Yes, but the difference between a metro Detroit district and a similar district in the South is that a larger share of the non-minority population can be expected to vote Democrat, giving African-American voters more say at a lower percentage of the population. The candidate of their choice can win the primary and then win the election with a lower share of the overall population in Michigan than in Texas or Mississippi, and those 70% black districts have been completely uncompetitive in this decade. A retrogression case would be novel but hard to prove, I think.

If MI loses a seat in 2010, its congressional districts will have around 736,000 persons. It will be impossible to draw two 60%-black CDs entirely within Wayne County.

The Census says there are 840,000 African-Americans in Wayne County. Split that population up 420,000 in each district, and you have two districts that are 57% Black and still overwhelmingly Democrat. By comparison: Kendrick Meek (FL-17), 57%
Alcee Hastings (FL-23), 51%
Hank Johnson (GA-4), 54%
John Lewis (GA-5), 56%
David Scott (GA-13), 41% (!)
Al Wynn (MD-4), 57%
Elijah Cummings (MD-7), 59%
Lacy Clay (MO-1), 50% (and a big slide down from the previous district, IIRC)
G.K. Butterfield (NC-1), 51%
Donald Payne (NJ-10), 57%
Gregory Meeks (NY-6), 53%
Stephanie Tubbs Jones (OH-11), 55%

I'm stopping here because I think the pattern is clear. There are a few districts with percentages in the low 60s in Chicago, Brooklyn, and of course Detroit, but the pattern here is that there's no requirement to be 65+% and it's not retrogression to get it into the high 50s.

If the GOP combines the heaviest Democrat parts of the Detroit area to draw two urban-suburban CDs that are 55% black and a third urban-suburban CD that is, say, 35% black, I seriously doubt that the DOJ or a court will strike down such a plan.

I'm sorry, I didn't see that your post was actually agreeing with the point I made in my first follow-up! Anyway, I agree, such a plan would have a good chance of passing muster with the DOJ if they could draw them artfully enough. I do stand by my assessment of the 7th district, based solely on the 2006 election results and the union-heavy nature of southeast Michigan. But I'm counting on Walberg to do much better in 2008 after that Schwarz business has been put to bed for a while and to take himself off the target list.