Congressional redistribution maps come under partisan scrutiny and criticism in the United States

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Sid Salter | For the Clarion Ledger

STARKVILLE – With super majorities in both houses of the Mississippi legislature, the revelation of the state’s new congressional redistribution plan by Republican leaders has drawn predictable partisan criticism and criticism from Democrats.

Not everyone in the Mississippi Republican Party was happy either, but generally the GOP has few legitimate complaints about how their party behaves in the proposal.

One of the main criticisms of the new Congressional maps is the expansion of the Second Congressional District to include Adams, Amite, Franklin and Walthall counties to the district currently represented by United States Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson of Bolton. , the leading United States House member serving his 13th term.

Thompson chairs the House Homeland Security Committee and notably also chairs the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurgency on the United States Capitol.

The proposed expansion of the second district would extend it from Tunica County south along the Mississippi River to Wilkinson County. This fact draws descriptions as a “sprawling majority black district” from some observers. However, the addition of the four counties in southwestern Mississippi to the proposed new second district removes them from the current third district.

The new second district would stretch north and south from Tunica to Woodville – a driving distance of 284 miles. The current third district now runs northeast to southwest from Starkville to Woodville – a driving distance of 257 miles. These same media voices were not moved in the past to note the existence of the current Third District as a “sprawling majority white district” despite being only 27 miles apart.

Make no mistake, the Black Mississippians are right to be very skeptical about the redistribution of Congress. Our state’s historic record is one in which as recently as 1966 lawmakers carved the Mississippi Delta horizontally to prevent Mississippi from having a single black-majority congressional district.

It would take 20 years of relentless prosecution and federal intervention to produce Mississippi’s first congressional district that would elect a black representative in 1986. Representative Thompson is only the second black congressman from Mississippi since the reconstruction.

But the point is, there is less real concern about the “sprawling districts” than Thompson’s desire to have all of Hinds County in the Second District. Or how it goes against the desire of outgoing Republican Congressman for the Third District, Michael Guest, to keep the main GOP constituencies of Northeast Jackson and South Madison County in his district.

Democrats in the Mississippi Legislature are also considering issues such as the future of the heavily Republican County of DeSoto in congressional politics. Many would like to see DeSoto enter the Second District in a bid to make the First District more competitive for Democrats – an unlikely eventuality.

Civil rights organizations have already filed ethics complaints against the mixed legislature’s redistribution committee for alleged violations of open meetings. There are also rumors of federal lawsuits challenging the committee’s plan. Federal lawsuits have been part of the Mississippi redistribution landscape since the 1960s and it is expected to continue in this cycle.

Most federal prosecutions regarding these matters focus on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Section 5 has since required all or part of 16 states, mostly southern (and some parts of New York, California and a few other non-southern states) with a history of discrimination against minority voters to obtain a “preclearance” from the US Department of Justice of any change in voting procedures, constituency line or voting practices.

Decades later, the Supreme Court ruled that the application of Article 5 must be a national approach rather than a narrowly defined guarantee in nine southern states or “covered jurisdiction.”

While race still plays far too big a role in congressional redistribution battles, a sure measure of progress is the fact that most of the current disputes are based on whether the proposed cards are protecting or targeting members of Congress in exercise or the current ruling party in the four districts. . These are questions of trade policy, not racial animosity.

Redistributing Congress is easy compared to legislative redistributing the state. The most inclined political battles come in the design of these maps. Even with super majorities in both houses, today’s GOP faces the same hurdles as yesterday’s Democratic majorities in the legislature – slicing political pies, even among friends, is a complicated business.

Sid Salter is a union columnist. Contact him at [email protected].

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