TBR-K. Jacobs Corresponding-OXFORD
DeSoto County's black residents, who say they generally have been shut out of local elected offices, want state legislators dealing with a decade of population changes to create at least one minority district that will represent their interests. During the activities a man from the crowd yelled out "Nigger Lover"!, while Ms. Jacobs spoke.
The Joint Legislative Committee on Reapportionment and Redistricting is holding 12 meetings across the state to gather citizen input into how Mississippi's 52 Senate districts, 122 House districts and four U.S. House Districts should be redrawn to ensure equality of representation. Such redistricting must be done after every U.S. census to make sure no district is substantially larger or smaller than another to comply with the Supreme Court's one-person, one-vote requirement.
During Thursday evening's stop in Oxford, several black DeSoto County residents appealed to legislators to establish a majority-black district in what, according to 2009 estimates, is by far the state's fastest-growing county. "We'd ask you all to really consider moving the (district) lines so an African-American can be elected," said Rev. Nathaniel Partee of Lake Cormorant.
Partee and a handful of other speakers laid out their concerns to the redistricting committee during an hour-long hearing at the University of Mississippi's Fulton Chapel. "We feel we haven't been properly represented. That's the bottom line," Partee said. DeSoto County presents legislators with a particularly difficult challenge because the county's population has grown faster than any other in the state, with an estimated 42 percent growth between 2000 and 2010.
Many of those new residents are minorities and live in the northern part of the county, said Michael Smith of Southaven, vice chairman of the DeSoto County Democratic Party. Smith told legislators that DeSoto County had more than 34,300 black residents, about 22 percent of its total population, according to 2009 estimates.
"Ask them (legislators) to consider a majority district that's representing a minority," he told committee members.
Rep. Tommy Reynolds, D-Water Valley, vice chairman of the committee, assured the gathering of about 50 people that the redistricting process would be unbiased. "We'll try to come up with something we all can be proud of and be fair," Reynolds said. He said legislators are required to develop districts that will have a population difference of less than 10 percent between the largest and smallest.
Legislators said the U.S. Census Bureau has told lawmakers they should have population figures from the 2010 census by Feb. 7.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
