Jackson Jambalaya

The Madison County Board of Supervisors met yesterday to discuss redistricting. Nearly 80 people attended the meeting and the media was present. Controversy erupted last week when the Board announced that only a committee of five individuals- Tim Johnson, Eric Hamer, Karl Banks, Lee Westbrook, and Brad Sellers, would handle redistricting. The Board also mandated that the company actually redistricting the county, Central Mississippi Planning & Development District, could only discuss redistricting with the committee and no one else, including election commissioners, other supervisors, and the Chancery Clerk.

The Board voted to file a lawsuit seeking extension of the qualifying deadline for Supervisor, Constable, and School Board elections until June 1 as redistricting has not been completed and the qualifying deadline for these races is March 1 (Video, maps, and documents distributed at meeting posted below).

The second page of the documents posted below states the population and racial composition for each district. The ideal population amount for each district is 19,041. District 1 (John Bell Crosby) has 17,350 residents and is 66% white. District 2 (Tim Johnson) has 19,039 people and is 80% white. District 3 (D.I. Smith) has 22,730 people and is 70% white. District 4 (Karl Banks) has 20,361 people and is 56% black. District 5 (Paul Griffin) has 15,453 people and is 76% black.

That was the news portion of this post, now for the editorial part. I suspect the Gang of Five has run into a little problem. Paul needs an additional three to four thousand voters in his district. The guidelines state the districts are to be "contiguous" and "compact" (page four of the second set of documents posted below). The guidelines can only be followed if Paul gains some of Karl's voters. Karl would then have to take voters from D.I. Smith's district, which has three thousand or so votes to spare. Tim's district is at the ideal number and John Bell's district is a little more than a thousand short of being within the desired statistical variation.

The dilemma for the Gang of Four, if they are so inclined to protect themselves in the redistricting process, is Karl has to give up several thousand voters to Paul although he currently enjoys a cushion of 1300 votes. There are approximately 3800 more blacks than whites in District 4. If Karl loses several thousand to Paul, his district gets much "whiter", something he presumably does not want to see happen. Start playing with the lines and you will see it is hard for the Karl, Paul, Tim, and John Bell to change the lines without hurting themselves, if the goal for them is indeed self-preservation.



Here are the current maps and the documents distributed at the meeting: