Despite objections from incumbent U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill that redraws the boundaries of the state's four congressional districts.
Weeks ago, Reeves, a Republican, agreed with the plan in House Bill 384, according to the Associated Press. That bill redraws Mississippi's congressional boundaries to account for changes in population, but Thompson has criticized the newly redrawn districts' borders.
The bill passed the state's GOP-majority Senate in a 33-18 vote on January 12, the Clarion-Ledger reported.
The legislation expands the 2nd District, Mississippi's only Black-majority U.S. House district. The plan changes the 2nd District to encompass around 40 percent of Mississippi's landmass via additions in Franklin, Adams, Wilkinson and Amite counties, four sparsely populated counties originally in the 3rd District, according to the AP. The expansion is due to the 2020 census showing a population decrease in the 2nd District in the past decade.
However, this is not the way Thompson, a Democrat, wanted to change his district, the AP reported. Thompson is the state's longest-serving current member of Congress, and he has represented the 2nd District, which goes through the Delta and into the city of Jackson, since he won a special election in 1993.
Thompson said that although he wanted to expand the 2nd District, he still wished to keep it comparatively compact, the AP reported. He wanted to do so by adding more of the densely populated Jackson metro area.
"It hurts our state when we continue to be punitive on its minority citizens. It is unfortunate. I would have hoped that we have come further than we have, but we have not," Thompson was quoted by WAPT.
Jackson was not the only Democrat to oppose the measure.
Both in the state House and Senate, Democrats opposed the measure, the Clarion-Ledger reported. They said the 2nd District is geographically too big and will require more additions in 2030 to offset population losses in Amite, Franklin, Wilkinson and Adams counties.
Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons and House Minority Leader Robert Johnson, both Democrats, proposed amendments to the bill that would have kept the four southwestern counties in the 3rd District and expanded the 2nd District to encompass Hinds County and a part of Madison County, according to the Clarion-Ledger. Thompson wrote a letter in December supporting the amendments, which went unapproved in both chambers.
The NAACP or others opponents of the new districts can still request a federal court to determine if the new districts decrease Black voters' influence, the AP added.
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