(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File) (Rogelio V. Solis, Copyright 2022 The Associated Press.
July 12, 2024 Story by: Editor
State officials in Mississippi argue that redrawing some legislative districts in time for this November’s election is unfeasible due to tight deadlines, according to recent court filings.
On Wednesday, attorneys for the all-Republican state Board of Election Commissioners responded to a July 2 ruling by three federal judges. The judges had ordered the Mississippi House and Senate to reconfigure certain legislative districts, stating that the current boundaries dilute the voting power of Black voters in three areas of the state.
The lawsuit prompting the ruling was filed in 2022 by the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP and several Black residents. The judges specified that new districts should be drawn before the next regular legislative session in January.
Mississippi conducted state House and Senate elections in 2023. Redrawing some districts would necessitate special elections to fill seats for the remainder of the four-year term.
The Election Commission attorneys mentioned that for the process to meet the deadlines for special elections to coincide with this November’s general election for federal offices and state judicial seats, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves would need to call a special session and adopt new districts by August 2. “It took the State a considerable period of time to draw the current maps,” the attorneys noted.
The judges mandated that legislators create majority-Black Senate districts in and around DeSoto County in the northwest, Hattiesburg in the south, and a new majority-Black House district in Chickasaw and Monroe counties in the northeast.
This order does not create additional districts but requires adjustments to existing ones, potentially impacting multiple districts. The Election Commission attorneys argued that drawing new boundaries “is not realistically achievable” by August 2.
Legislative and congressional districts are revised after each census to reflect population changes. Mississippi’s population is approximately 59% white and 38% Black. In the redistricting plan adopted in 2022 and used in the 2023 elections, 15 of the 52 Senate districts and 42 of the 122 House districts are majority-Black, representing 29% of Senate districts and 34% of House districts.
Jarvis Dortch, a former state lawmaker and the current executive director of the ACLU of Mississippi, supported the judges’ decision to revise the House and Senate maps. “Those legislative districts denied Black Mississippians an equal voice in state government,” Dortch said.
Historical voting patterns in Mississippi indicate that districts with higher white populations tend to favor Republicans, while districts with higher Black populations lean towards Democrats.
Similar lawsuits have been filed in several states challenging the composition of congressional or state legislative districts drawn after the 2020 census. Source: AP News
