Should Republicans "redistrict" Congressman Bennie Thompson out of Congress? Tis a question dominating Mississippi political news right now so JJ is engaging in a little bit of political thunderdome. Should the Governor have cancelled the redistricting special session? What should be done about the Congressman? Redistricting rage dominates the political news in Mississippi right now so JJ is engaging in a little bit of political thunderdome. JJ invited State Auditor Shad White and former Hinds County GOP Chairman Pete Perry to offer their thoughts on the matter. Enjoy the pro and con below.
State Auditor Shad White
Mississippi should redistrict January 6th Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson out of his seat. He is the worst congressman in America and has been horrible for the people of the Mississippi Delta. If we want the Delta to improve, it needs better leadership.
For years, courts forced Mississippi to draw districts where a majority of the voters were a racial minority. Today that sort of requirement feeds racial tension in America. It divides us by race, not brings us together. It rests on a weird assumption that only white people can represent white people, and only black people can represent black people, or that all people of a race think the same way. These are offensive, backwards notions. The way to have a more colorblind society is to have colorblind rules for society.
The Supreme Court now agrees. In its new ruling in the Callais decision, the Court clearly ended the requirement for majority-minority districts. Other states around us are redrawing their congressional lines because of this. Mississippi has an opportunity to have four Republican districts, and we should take it.
Some people in the Mississippi Republican establishment have been hesitant to do this. In fact, at the time of this writing, I’m the only statewide elected official or member of Congress in Mississippi to call for redrawing the lines, to my knowledge. The establishment claims that, if we redraw the lines, we might accidentally create two Republican districts and two Democrat districts. But this is nonsense. If this were the case, the Mississippi Democrat Party would be arguing for redistricting. Instead, they are fighting it. That tells you everything you need to know. Moreover, anyone can use the free map-drawing software on the Internet to see there are many ways to create maps with four districts in Mississippi that Donald Trump would have won by more than 15 percentage points in the last election.
The real reason some in the establishment don’t want to redraw the lines is they want to protect some of their Republican buddies who are happy in their current seats. But we cannot let their comfort jeopardize a chance to help America. This is not some trivial political game. The people we send to Congress shape how safe our streets are, how high our taxes go, and how secure our border is. We must follow President Trump’s lead and redraw the lines to save our country.
Pete Perry
Governor Reeves, acting to stave off a scheduled hearing of Federal Judge
Sharon Aycock, issued a Call for the legislature to convene and consider
redistricting the Supreme Court Districts in compliance with Aycock’s 2025 order -
pending the Supreme Court’s Callais ruling that challenged federal courts’
authority under Article 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
SCOTUS found that Amendment 15 guarantees that the a citizens’ right to
vote “shall not be denied on account of race or color” and that intentional
discrimination is not allowed while establishing that the impact does not justify
the creation of majority-minority district. This clear - and proper - interpretation
of the Amendment negated a premise that has ruled redistricting actions since
the early 1980’s.
There immediately grew a push for Mississippi to follow our neighbors by
drawing a new map to “eliminate Bennie’s district,” or “get rid of our black
district.” There were demands for Reeves to expand his call and include the
creation of a new congressional district map.
While current and potential candidates were pushing to expand the call,
the Fifth Circuit dismissed Aycock’s ruling, eliminating the need to redraw the
Supreme Court districts resulting in Reeves - again showing leadership and his
understanding of our laws - cancelling the Call. Immediately, wanna-bes criticized
him for not following “Trump’s demands” and leaving Thompson for another
term.
Reeves was the adult in the room, not following those that were clamoring
to do the same as Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, and others by immediately
redrawing our congressional districts. He recognized that Mississippi is in a
different position than those states. Our election process had already begun.
Unlike them, our primary elections had been held with nominees selected. Those
other states had not.
IF Reeves had followed these demands, or if we had officials who chose not
to follow laws and processes, the entire election could have been in peril.
Negating the March 10 th elections would certainly have resulted in multiple
lawsuits which could not be resolved prior to the November election. And
practically there was not adequate time to allow for candidate qualifying,
campaigning, conducting party primaries, and nominee campaigning prior to the
November 3 rd election; much less the time required to prepare for and conduct
those elections.
But to those whose only interest was playing to the public, those factors
seem not to have entered their thoughts. Thankfully, Reeves chose to lead the
state rather than act in a manner to further personal interests or kowtow to a
populace that did not consider, or care, of the legal standards differentiating us
from other states.
While factors distinguish us from our neighbors are adequate to compare
proper leadership and political posturing, there is another consideration to the
suggested redistricting: the possible result and unintended consequences. But
that is a different discussion for a different time.
The concept and demands for the state to immediately redraw our
congressional lines to “eliminate Bennie’s district” ignores practical and legal
impediments. That ‘other states are doing it’ is no answer; each state has its own
election laws (thankfully, that truth still exists) and each state has its own status.
Candidates who claim what ‘they would do if they were in charge’ seem to
conveniently ignore at least one significant difference: the election had not begun
in the other states. In Mississippi, it had.
Election law is convoluted and attorneys who do not specialize in it may not
recognize all that is involved, possibly even Harvard-Law graduates. I readily
admit that I am not a lawyer, but I can read and sometimes that is all that is
needed to understand what is legal and possible. I’m glad that Governor Reeves -
also not an attorney - considered the legal and practical restraints when he was
making these proper, although not universally popular, decisions.
2 comments:
Bennie is as sorry as they come for sure. But he has zero power. There are several incompetent numb nut republicans that I would rather see retired by the electorate.
“Should Republicans "redistrict" Congressman Bennie Thompson out of Congress?” Absolutely!
Every non-leftist, non-totalitarian should take seriously Democrat Purposeful Crime Party House Minority Leader (Walmart Obama) Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) statement “We are in an era of maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time” while describing his party’s efforts to draw state districts favoring Democrats.
But, we damned sure do not want to create 2 purple districts, so who do we believe?
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