Mississippi legislative proposal pits incumbents against each other

The Mississippi chapter of the ACLU has submitted a proposal to redraw the state’s legislative districts that creates two new majority-Black Senate districts and pits two pairs of incumbent senators against one another. 

The plan, submitted on behalf of Black residents and the state branch of the NAACP, creates a new majority-Black Senate district in north Mississippi’s DeSoto County and in south Mississippi’s Hattiesburg area. 

“Any proposed maps that attempt to meet the court order by diluting or undermining existing Black-majority voting districts in other parts of the state will fail the requirements set by the court and federal law,” Mississippi ACLU Director Jarvis Dortch said in a statement. 

The plan tweaks the boundaries of the existing 52 Senate districts. 

To accommodate new majority-Black districts, the plan places Republican Sens. Kevin Blackwell and David Parker, both of DeSoto County, in the same district. The same scenario would happen to Republican Sens. John Polk and Chris Johnson of Hattiesburg. 

Neither the Senate nor the House has released a redistricting proposal, and the federal courts have not yet ruled on a submitted plan. 

Senate Rules Committee Chairman Dean Kirby, a Republican from Pearl, said on Mississippi Today’s “The Other Side” podcast that Senate leaders were “very close” to releasing a redistricting plan.  

For the House, the ACLU’s plan would make the District 22 seat in Chickasaw County currently held by Republican Rep. Jon Lancaster of Houston, who is white, a majority-Black voter district. This portion of the plan does not put any incumbents against each other. 

House Speaker Jason White, a Republican from West, said he did not know when the House leadership planned to release its redistricting plan but that it was one of his priorities and he plans to “get it done.” 

The ACLU proposal stems from a successful legal challenge the organization filed against state officials that argued the legislative districts drawn in 2022 by the state Legislature diluted Black voting strength. 

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A federal three-judge panel agreed, ordering the state to create more majority-Black districts and conduct special elections within the impacted districts this year. 

Only a couple of legislative districts will significantly change, but the Legislature will also have to tweak many districts to accommodate new maps. State officials in court filings have argued that the redrawing would affect a quarter of the state’s 174 legislative districts.

While the court ultimately placed the burden on the Legislature for creating a new map that satisfies federal voting laws, it ordered that the ACLU and the plaintiffs should be ready with an alternative plan if they object to the state’s plan that must be adopted by the conclusion of the 2025 session, which ends in the spring.