Credit: Mississippi Today website
The Mississippi House approved a congressional map today that would move Natchez-Adams County to Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson’s district from the one now represented by Republican Michael Guest.
The redistricting bill now goes to the Mississippi Senate for it to pass or revise.
In adopting the Republican-drawn plan, the state House of Representatives voted down an alternative presented by state Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez. His Democratic-backed plan would keep Natchez-Adams County in the GOP-dominated district represented by Guest.
Johnson—who’s the House Democratic leader — maintains Adams County has little in common with communities in Thompson’s district, which traverses the western part of the state from Jefferson County to near the Tennessee state line. It’s Mississippi’s sole Black-majority congressional district.
With the map passed by the House today, Johnson said it would be “almost impossible” for District 2’s congressman to adequately represent Adams County in such a sprawling configuration.
“You have a district where the congressman has 40 counties and can’t effectively serve these counties in a way they should be served,” Johnson said during the debate on the congressional districting bill.
The map pushed by Johnson and other Democrats would keep Adams County in Guest’s District 3, which runs from southwest Mississippi through metropolitan Jackson and to Starkville-Oktibbeha County in northeast Mississippi.
The impetus behind the Democrats’ alternative districting plan is to ensure all of Jackson-Hinds County is in Thompson’s district, as he’s requested, rather than having a slice of his home county in Guest’s district.
Thompson — in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1993 — is Mississippi’s longest-serving congressman and only Black representative. He chairs the House committee that’s investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Trump a year ago. Guest is a three-year House member in his second term. Both are expected to run for re-election in the congressional elections later this year.
State House and Senate GOP members drew the congressional redistricting plan. The House voted 76-42 today for the new districts in a split that reflects the number of Republicans and Democrats in the legislative chamber.
With Thompson’s existing congressional losing population the past 10 years, Adams, Franklin, Wilkinson and Amite counties need to be added to District 2 to ensure its nearly equal in population with Mississippi’s three other congressional districts, said House Speaker Pro Tempore Jason White. The new map “meets all the legal and constitutional criteria” required for congressional districts, said White, a leader in the reapportionment efforts.
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