Jackson Free Press

The Mississippi Senate voted to end the session yesterday without taking up a new redistricted map.

House Speaker Billy McCoy, D-Rienzi, said Mississippi Senate leaders refused to let the full Senate consider a proposal that would have redrawn House and Senate districts and ended a federal lawsuit the NAACP filed in March.

"By refusing to consider the joint resolution approved by the House, the Senate is knowingly forcing the taxpayers of this state to pay for two legislative elections and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal expenses, all in the name of hoping to achieve a partisan advantage in the upcoming campaigns," McCoy said.

The NAACP filed its lawsuit last month in federal court, asking a judge to impose new redistricting maps idrew upon the state. President Derrick Johnson said the current districts are no longer constitutional because of population shifts the 2010 Census uncovered. Senate and House districts must contain an evenly distributed population between themselves.

The House and Senate must approve the map the opposite chamber devised, but the Senate has refused to pass the House plan three times. Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican running for governor, says the House plan does not create enough GOP districts to reflect growth in the state's conservative areas. The NAACP, meanwhile, complains that a House and Senate substitute plan submitted by Republicans does not contain enough black-majority districts to reflect the state's significant black population. Blacks, however, tend to vote Democratic.

Yesterday marked the Senate's third refusal to approve the House plan. Senate Rules Committee Chairman Billy Hewes, R-Gulfport, told The Clarion-Ledger that the House did not submit the maps correctly.

"According to the interpretation of many, but most importantly our staff attorneys, it is patently unconstitutional and therefore improperly before us," Hewes stated.

The House sent the map over as a joint resolution.

Rep. Bobby Moak, D-Bogue Chitto, said there was nothing improper about the resolution the House sent to the Senate.

"If both chambers agree to vote on that resolution, then it is jointly agreed to by both parties. Hewes is looking for a reason not to allow the senators to get an up or down vote on the issue," Moak said. "A joint resolution has to be a higher standard, in that a joint resolution must have a majority of those elected to a body whereas a concurrent resolution requires only a majority of those present and voting."

When senators voted to close the session, they essentially left the redistricting matter to the courts, unless Gov. Haley Barbour calls for a special session to specifically take up the House and Senate maps.