The Mississippi Legislature’s joint committee on redistricting will hold its next hearing on Wednesday at Delta State University to gather testimony from Mississippians on how lawmakers should proceed in whether to redraw Mississippi’s congressional and state legislative districts following the U.S. Supreme Court’s effective undercutting of a section of the Voting Rights Act that protects the strength of minority voters.
Next week’s hearing, which begins 6 p.m. at Delta State’s Bologna Performing Arts Center in Cleveland, marks the joint committee’s third stop in a statewide tour and the first and only hearing set in the Delta. Other hearings will take place in Natchez, Meridian, Hattiesburg and Biloxi. The final hearing is scheduled for Oct. 1 at the Capitol in Jackson.
Any potential redistricting in Mississippi, given various state Republicans’ public announcements, would likely seek to dismantle the Second Congressional District, Mississippi’s sole majority-minority voting district, where the Black voting-age population is 61%, the highest in the state. The district is represented by Bennie Thompson, the only Black member and the only Democrats representing the state in Congress. It encompasses nearly all of western Mississippi and all of the Delta.
State lawmakers will only listen to Mississippians’ thoughts about potential redistricting rather than speak or answer questions.
At the hearing at Itawamba Community College in Belden, northwest of Tupelo in Lee County, most of the speakers told the committee there was no need for redistricting and that any such efforts would contribute to the state’s brain drain and remove Black political power, according to reporting by The Mississippi Independent. Some of the speakers were local Democrats.
At the joint committee’s second hearing earlier this week at Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, most speakers, some of them local Republicans, called for the state legislature to redraw voting districts using “race-neutral criteria,” the Mississippi Independent reported.
Typically, districts are redrawn every 10 years after the results of the latest U.S. Census are tabulated. State lawmakers take into account changes in population but also draw the lines in manners that capture groups favorable to keeping incumbents in power, such as voters registered with their political party, an act known as gerrymandering. Racial gerrymandering, at least on paper, is illegal.
Mississippi’s joint legislative committee on redistricting held hearings throughout the state in 2021 following the completion of the 2020 census. By early 2022, the Legislature approved four congressional districts, 122 state House districts and 52 state Senate districts.
Yet, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais in late April, which found a second congressional district in Louisiana drawn to cater to the voting strengths of Black residents was an unconstitutional act of racial gerrymandering, officials in a handful of states have since engaged in mid-decade efforts to redraw their districts, or attempt to redraw them, to benefit their political parties ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 not only barred discriminatory voting practices — predominantly used in the South to prevent Black voters from registering and casting their ballots — but also had protections to prevent redrawing districts that would dilute the collective voting strength of minority voters to elect candidates of their choice, such as in majority-minority districts.
In a 1986 case, Thornburg v. Gingles, the Supreme Court developed a three-prong test that plaintiffs suing for violations of the Voting Rights Act for dilution of minority voting districts must follow. The test focused on the results of redistricting, meaning the effects of redistricting will lead to racial discrimination.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling on April 29 in Louisiana v. Callais did not overturn the Voting Rights Act, but it did change the Gingles test. Rather than focusing on the effects of redistricting that resulted or will result in the racial discrimination of minority voters, plaintiffs must show that defendants — as in state legislatures — had racist intent when redrawing voting precincts. Critics have lambasted the nation’s high court decision since presumably no state legislature would publicly announce it is engaging in redistricting efforts to specifically dilute the power of minority voters.
On social media, a number of Republican state officials have posted about their desire to redraw the state’s voting districts specifically to boot Thompson out of office.
Thompson’s “reign of terror” is over and it’s just a matter of “when,” Gov. Tate Reeves posted online.
“Mississippi might no longer have a district drawn to protect Bennie Thompson,” State Auditor Shad White, a possible gubernatorial candidate, posted the day of the Supreme Court’s decision.
Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson, who is running for governor, echoed a similar sentiment. “Mississippi Conservatives agree with me, it is time for Bennie Thompson to go!” Gipson posted in May.
- Gerard Edic is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Contact him at 662-581-7237 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com. You can support his work with a tax-deductible donation at bit.ly/4wM0wV6.
