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Gov. Tate Reeves is expected to approve the new congressional map drawn by the state Legislature that moves Adams County to the state’s only predominately black district that covers much of west Mississippi.
The state Senate today voted for the new election lines, a week after the Mississippi House did the same.
After years of being in the Republican district that runs northeasterly through suburban Jackson to Starkville, Natchez is mapped to be in the congressional district that’s been represented by Bennie Thompson since 1993. He’s Mississippi’s only Democratic and Black congressman. Thompson is also the state’s longest-serving member of the U.S. Congress.
Black and Democratic state legislators oppose the Republican-controlled Legislature’s realignment of Mississippi’s four congressional districts. They complain it doesn’t put all of Thompson’s home county of Hinds in his congressional district, as he’s requested. They’ve also expressed concerns that Natchez-Adams County has little in common with communities in Thompson’s district, which spans the western part of the state to near the Tennessee state line.
The Democratic-backed plan would keep Natchez-Adams County in the GOP-dominated district currently represented by Michael Guest.
The newly drawn districts could be challenged in court, but the realignment is “a valid, constitutional plan,” said Senate President Pro Tem Dean Kirby, who guided the redistricting bill for today’s 33-18 vote of approval by the Senate.
Federal courts have been forced to draw Mississippi’s previous congressional districts when the state Legislature’s plans were ruled unconstitutional after the 2000 and 2010 U.S. censuses.
With Thompson’s existing congressional losing population the past 10 years, Adams, Franklin, Wilkinson and Amite counties are being added to his District 2 to ensure it’s nearly equal in population with Mississippi’s three other congressional districts, as required by federal law.
The reapportioned district’s voting-age population is about 61 percent Black, according to census data.
Some have complained that adding the four southwest Mississippi counties to Thompson’s district would impair the congressman’s abilities to represent such a large territory that covers about 270 miles. However, Kirby noted the 3rdCongressional District currently represented by Guest meanders about 250 miles from Natchez to Starkville.
Sen. Melanie Sojourner of Natchez was one of just two Senate Republicans voting against the GOP-drawn bill. She said she doesn’t want Thompson to be her congressman.
“I’m a conservative Republican and I don’t want to be represented by a liberal democrat in Washington, D.C.,” Sojourner said. “I also know that the majority of our Senate district that voted for me feel the same way, and because of this I was very much against the redistricting plan presented to us by the (Republican) leadership.”
The bill will go to the governor in the coming days for his approval. Reeves, a Republican, has indicated he supports the refashioned congressional districts as drawn by the Legislature.
Congressional candidates have a March 1 deadline to file to run in the election primaries scheduled in June. Thompson is expected to run for re-election.
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