The first time I started to write about the story in this Tweet I realized it was much bigger than part of a short evening post. It was clear fairly quickly into the Bloomberg article that this was a full diary story.
First, a little about Ms. Collins and her campaign. She’s running for Attorney General of Mississippi. She’s a former Colonel in the US Army, and also a civil right’s lawyer. She’s an impressive candidate for any position; and it’s reasonable to assume that a Black person would have at least a challenging time getting elected to statewide office in the south.
But as you learn when you read the article, the state’s constitution is uniquely written to keep white people in power. It currently takes winning more than 50% of the total votes AND 50% of the total legislative districts. Definitely more challenging when you consider that 2/3 of the state’s legislative districts are majority white districts. And then in an especially anti-Democratic move, if a candidate fails to win both of those requirements, the state House of Representatives chooses a winner that can totally ignore who won the most votes.
These requirements are so egregious that one state lawmakers said about them,
“Even Alabama doesn’t do this.”
Now you know why it’s been 130 years since a Black person was elected to a statewide office, and part of how Mississippi’s constitution was written to defend the power of white people.
The brewing battle alluded to in the Tweet includes former US AG, Eric Holder and his organization, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. The lawsuit that’s been filed, if successful, would strike down those racist requirements.
“I can’t think of another law I’ve been involved in challenging that was put in place specifically to discriminate against black voters and would have such a profound statistical effect on their ability to elect a state official statewide,’’ said Marc Elias, who is involved in the Holder case and is considered one of the country’s top Democratic elections attorneys.
www.bloomberg.com/...
Despite the judicial climate in which Federal courts have been willing to allow some gerrymandering to happen, and the SCOTUS has struck down some sections of the Voting Rights Act, there has been some recognition of the problems in Mississippi. A few weeks ago a federal appeals court ruled that a Mississippi State Senate district had been illegally gerrymandered when a majority Black district was changed to include a section of a white county had been added to dilute the votes of a majority Black district.
Mississippi’s constitution is not merely satisfied with preventing Black people from winning statewide office, it is of course intent on reducing the number of Black people eligible to vote. The Bloomberg article continues to highlight the racist intents of that document.
The constitution used proxies for race to discriminate against black voters without saying so outright in its text. Most have been outlawed over time.
The surviving provisions are the target of two federal lawsuits: Holder’s, which was filed by the Mississippi Center for Justice in Jackson, and a consolidated suit by the justice center and the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center. The latter targets language intended to strip voting rights from black felons but not whites. Daniel Jordan III, a federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush, granted that suit class-action status in February.
emphasis mine
Now, this is where the intent of the racist voter suppression gets weird.
It was designed to capture the mostly non-violent felonies historically believed to be more common among blacks. A state Supreme Court opinion in 1896 declared that the black population was "careless, landless ... and its criminal members given rather to furtive offences than to the robust crimes of the whites." Today, theft costs Mississippi felons the vote. Aggravated assault does not.
Yes, you read that correctly — steal something you lose your right to vote; violently assault someone you don’t. You’re also probably smart enough to see how this might mean white people are losing their voting rights and in Mississippi that’s not good if your goal is to maintain white electoral power.
There was, of course, a solution created that would help people regain their voting rights that “coincidentally” favors former white felons.
Here’s how it works. All you have to do is find a state legislator who is willing to sponsor a bill that’s passed by 2/3 of both Houses of the state legislature and get it signed by the Governor. The article doesn’t state if any Black people have been successful with that remedy, but I’m going to go out on a very strong limb and say there haven’t been many it any.
In an interesting plot twist, if the lawsuit is successful, one of the beneficiaries of the lawsuit could be the only Democratic holding statewide office, the current AG, James Hood. He’s running for governor, which in Mississippi has the power to veto gerrymandered voting districts. His campaign slogan gives you some insight into his thinking,
“The candidate with the most votes should win, period.’’
Let’s manifest wins for Jennifer Riley Colins, James Hood and the lawsuits filed against the state of Mississippi.