Jackson Free Press

Redistricting could cost blacks some political clout as the most of the state's white population continues to embrace the Republican Party.

U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Grady Jolly heard three options Friday that could see the state through to end the state of its redistricting battle, but only one of them would ensure what the NAACP describes as a fair number of black-majority districts in the state.

NAACP attorney Carroll Rhodes told the Jackson Free Press that the court has three immediate options for dealing with the redistricting stalemate, as the Senate Republican majority and the House Democratic majority continue to square off on the number of majority-black (and thus majority-Democratic) House districts in several proposed district maps.

The Mississippi Republican Party and Gov. Haley Barbour asked the court to appoint an "expert" to redraw the House and Senate districts from the beginning, while the NAACP and Democrats want the courts to impose upon the state House and Senate district maps that the Mississippi House approved, but rejected by the Senate rejected during the legislative session.

A third option, proposed by Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, would allow legislators to run for their 2011 election under their current district maps, and deal with redistricting next year.

Rhodes said Hosemann's suggestion, while allowing legislators to qualify for elections by their the June 1 deadline and run in the Aug. 2 primaries, would not be the best decision for either voters or legislators in the long run.

"The option offered by Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann to run under the current district would mean we would have two elections, because they would have to run again in 2012," Rhodes said. He added that the current maps no longer represent an equal distribution of voters, as revealed by 2010 Census numbers.

The NAACP wants the court to instead submit the Senate-rejected House and Senate district maps to the U.S. Department of Justice for review. The DOJ would scrutinize the maps for black-voter dilution, and the NAACP believes the DOJ would approve the House and Senate maps that create more black-majority districts, but which the conservative-controlled Senate repeatedly tossed in March.

Mississippi GOP attorney Mike Wallace would not say what the Mississippi GOP's reaction would be to any decision imposing the Senate and House plans that partially made it through the Legislature last month. He also would not opine if that would be the end of the GOP's struggle to create a more Republican House.

"Nobody knows the answer to that question. I don't know the answer, and I don't know that anybody does. That's the best I can tell you. It's not at all clear what result that would be," Wallace said.

But the Mississippi Republican Party does want more Republican GOP districts in the House to reflect growth in majority-white districts, which would cut into the number of black-majority districts proposed by a House plan. Last month, the Mississippi GOP submitted a House map during the 2011 legislative session, which the NAACP argued created less fewer majority-black districts.

Previous Comments

ID

163270

Comment

That's a factual statement in our state, Bret. It's sadly based on rock-solid information, and not political assumption. It's what the whole debate is over.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2011-04-25T12:44:51-06:00