Michigan: Thirteenth District

Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D)

Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D) Elected 1996, 6th term up
Born:	06-25-1945, Detroit
Home:	Detroit
Education:	Ferris St. U., 1968-70, W. MI U., B.S. 1972, U. of MI, M.S. 1977
Religion:	African Methodist Episcopal
Marital Status:	divorced
Elected  Office:	MI House of Reps., 1978–96.
Professional Career:	Teacher, Detroit public schls., 1970–78.
DC Office	2264 RHOB, 20515 202-225-2261 Fax: 202-225-5730 Website: www.house.gov/kilpatrick
State Offices	Detroit:313-965-9004; Wyandotte:734-246-0780;
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Few central cities in America had as vibrant a 20th century history, and as sad a recent past, as Detroit. This was America’s first automobile city, not just because it manufactured so many of the nation’s cars but also because it was built to automobile scale. Detroit started the century as a second-rank city, no bigger than Milwaukee, with less than half a million people and extending no farther than four or five miles out from the site where the French built Fort Pontchartrain on the Detroit River in 1701. As the Motor City boomed, it grew outward along wide avenues and, starting in the 1950s, freeways; the auto companies put their factories and headquarters near the edge of urban settlement. As early as 1954, the nation’s first big suburban shopping center, with parking for 10,000 cars, was drawing retail trade from downtown. Metro Detroit expanded to four million people, each generation moving out the roadways rapidly in many directions, leaving behind the previous generation’s neighborhoods and civic institutions.

Today, that rapid movement has left large parts of Detroit literally empty. The central city had nearly 1.85 million people in 1950, but dropped below 1 million in 2000; in 2006 the population was estimated to be 871,000. The reason is obvious: crime. For 30 years Detroit had a murder rate drastically higher than in the suburbs, and naturally those who could afford to leave did so. Downtown, formerly iconic buildings have been torn down and others are all but empty while officials struggle to create new population centers and a business district. General Motors and Ford have been losing billions of dollars each year. There have been some positive developments. GM bought for $72 million the 70-story Renaissance Center, built in the 1970s for $350 million, and the company moved several thousand employees there. Beyond downtown, some of the city’s jewels have been maintained: the Detroit Institute of Arts, the hospital center, the old Fox Theater. New baseball and football stadiums have opened just north of downtown—in 2006, they hosted the World Series and the Super Bowl. Three gambling casinos have opened in nearby Greektown, where most Greek immigrants have moved out though their businesses remain. Residential and commercial projects have risen and more are planned on the long-neglected riverfront, with encouragement from a new shopping plaza and promenade at the Renaissance Center. But beyond these well-policed enclaves lie acres of vacant fields and half-empty blocks where there were once five-story apartments or brick houses. The continuing job losses at the auto makers showed no sign of abating.

Detroit’s fate is all the more tragic because it comes in a city where liberal reformers hoped to create model anti-poverty and anti-discrimination programs. Coleman Young, Detroit’s mayor from 1973 to 1993, spent his energy on courting the Big Three; he bulldozed the viable Poletown neighborhood for a new Cadillac plant. Dennis Archer, who served the next eight years, took a more constructive and intelligent approach, and the city began to turn around, with lower crime, more jobs, new housing permits and a start at a growing private sector. In 2001, Kwame Kilpatrick, a former state legislator, brought young blood when he was elected mayor, at age 31, as the self-styled “America’s first hip-hop mayor.” He styled himself a national leader of urban America but was reelected only narrowly.

The 13th Congressional District of Michigan includes more than half of Detroit, plus a few adjacent suburbs, from the affluent Grosse Pointes with nearly 50,000 people looking out toward Lake St. Clair to the Downriver industrial towns of River Rouge, Ecorse, Lincoln Park and Wyandotte. It includes practically all of the east side of Detroit and the west side up to about five miles north of the Detroit River—the entire riverfront and downtown, the old General Motors and Fisher Buildings, most of Detroit’s auto factories. At 108 square miles, this is the smallest district in the state, with the biggest problems: the state’s highest rates of poverty, unemployment and percentages of residents on public assistance. Between 2000 and 2005, the district population declined by 53,000, one of the biggest hemorrhages in the nation. Politically, the 13th is overwhelmingly Democratic, but voter turnout is low—126,323 in the House race in 2006, far below the 276,180 in the high-income 9th District. This is one of Michigan’s 2 black-majority seats and one of the safest Democratic districts in the nation.

The congresswoman from the 13th District is Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, a Democrat first elected in 1996 and the mother of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. She was born and raised in Detroit, attended Ferris State and graduated from Western Michigan University and the University of Michigan. She taught business education in Detroit public schools and was elected to the state House in 1978. She lost a race for the Detroit City Council, but won the 1996 Democratic primary for the congressional seat by a solid 51%-31% margin against her one-time political partner, incumbent Barbara-Rose Collins.

Kilpatrick, whose voting record once was among the most liberal in the House, has moderated slightly. She made a point of visiting the suburbs in her district, meeting local officials and assigning staffers to work with them—a contrast to Collins. On the Appropriations Committee, she has taken credit for funding Detroit-area transportation projects and for funding Detroit water treatment and sewage facilities. She spurred the creation of the Detroit Area Regional Transportation Authority as an essential first step to increased national support for local funding. Her other chief focus at Appropriations has been increased foreign aid for needy areas in Africa, including additional hundreds of millions of dollars to combat HIV/AIDS overseas. Kilpatrick has had no problems winning reelection, and she has focused her local political energy on boosting her son, the Detroit mayor.

In January 2007, as part of the House majority for the first time, Kilpatrick took over as chair of the record-high, 43-member Congressional Black Caucus. She said that the Caucus will “create new ways to address the challenges facing our community so that we can ensure future generations have access to power and prosperity in America.”

Committees

• Appropriations (21st of 37 D)
  Financial Services & General Government; Homeland Security.

Presidential Vote

District Demographics (More Info)

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: D +32
• Area size: 108 square miles
• Urban Population: 100.0%
• Rural Population: 0.0%
• Population 2000: 662,563
• Population 2005 (est): 609,907
• Median Income: $31,165
• Poverty Status: 24.4%
• Military Veterans: 10.7%
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 28.9% White; 60.5% Black; 1.2% Asian; 0.3% Native Am.; 0.0% Hawaiian; 1.8% Two+ races; 0.2% Other; 7.2% Hispanic Origin;
• Ancestry: 5.4% German%; 4.2% Polish%; 4.2% Irish%;
• Occupation: Blue collar 29.3%; White collar 50.7%; Gray collar 20.1%;