Posted on Oct 29, 2023
In Mississippi, most voters will have no choice about who represents them in the Legislature
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After being in office for over a decade, Mississippi state Sen. Dean Kirby got challenged in the Republican primary. He won with 70% of the vote.
That was in 2003 — and it remains the last time Kirby faced an opponent. The longtime Jackson-area senator is on the ballot again this year without either a Democratic or Republican challenger.
While the length of Kirby’s uncontested streak is unusual, his situation is not. More than four-fifths of Mississippi’s legislative candidates will have no major-party opposition in the Nov. 7 general election. And more than half of this year’s winners will have faced no other Republicans or Democrats in either the primary or the general election.
That was in 2003 — and it remains the last time Kirby faced an opponent. The longtime Jackson-area senator is on the ballot again this year without either a Democratic or Republican challenger.
While the length of Kirby’s uncontested streak is unusual, his situation is not. More than four-fifths of Mississippi’s legislative candidates will have no major-party opposition in the Nov. 7 general election. And more than half of this year’s winners will have faced no other Republicans or Democrats in either the primary or the general election.
In Mississippi, most voters will have no choice about who represents them in the Legislature
Posted from kstp.com
Republicans
Voting
Elections
Democracy
Saint Louis University
Posted 8 mo ago
Responses: 5
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."One reason is political gerrymandering — a process by which those in power draw voting districts to give their party’s candidates an advantage.
Lawmakers are less likely to face challenges when one political party holds an overwhelming majority in the legislature and when district boundaries are drawn to include voters predominately favoring one party, Rogers found. Competition also is lower when lawmakers’ salaries are lower. And fewer challengers are likely to step forward when they are of the same party as an unpopular president.
All those factors are in play this year in Mississippi. Republicans currently hold lopsided legislative majorities. The vast majority of districts are packed with voters favoring one party. The legislative salary is $23,500, plus a daily expense allowance when lawmakers are at work. And President Joe Biden is underwater in public opinion polls, adding to the challenge for fellow Democrats in Mississippi.
“Candidates don’t want to run races they think they’re going to lose,” said Abhi Rahman, communications director for the national Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee."...
..."One reason is political gerrymandering — a process by which those in power draw voting districts to give their party’s candidates an advantage.
Lawmakers are less likely to face challenges when one political party holds an overwhelming majority in the legislature and when district boundaries are drawn to include voters predominately favoring one party, Rogers found. Competition also is lower when lawmakers’ salaries are lower. And fewer challengers are likely to step forward when they are of the same party as an unpopular president.
All those factors are in play this year in Mississippi. Republicans currently hold lopsided legislative majorities. The vast majority of districts are packed with voters favoring one party. The legislative salary is $23,500, plus a daily expense allowance when lawmakers are at work. And President Joe Biden is underwater in public opinion polls, adding to the challenge for fellow Democrats in Mississippi.
“Candidates don’t want to run races they think they’re going to lose,” said Abhi Rahman, communications director for the national Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee."...
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White Men Lynch Voting Rights Activist Lamar Smith in Mississippi
“On the morning of August 13, 1955, white men shot and killed Lamar Smith, a 63-year-old Black farmer and veteran of World War I, in front of the Lincoln County Courthouse in Brookhaven, Mississippi, while he was encouraging African Americans to vote in a local run-off election. Mr. Smith, a voting rights advocate affiliated with the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, had been threatened and warned to stop trying to register and organize African American voters in the community. His murder took place on the courthouse lawn in front of dozens of witnesses, including Sheriff Robert E. Case, who permitted one of the alleged assailants to leave the crime scene covered in blood. Days later, that man and two others were arrested in connection with the shooting. All three suspects were white. In September 1955, a grand jury composed of 20 white men declined to indict the three suspects for murder after witnesses failed to come forward to testify.
Following the grand jury’s report, District Attorney E.C. Barlow criticized the lack of witness cooperation and complained about the sheriff’s handling of the case.
Despite Barlow’s public promises to proceed with the investigation, the criminal case against the three suspects was dismissed and no one was held accountable for Lamar Smith's murder.”
SOURCE : https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/aug/13
2.) LAMAR SMITH - NOTICE TO CLOSE FILE
CIVIL RIGHTS
It is recommended that the above case be closed for the following reasons:
Case Synopsis
On the morning of August 13, 1955, Lamar Smith, an African-American World War I veteran active in voter registration drives, was shot and killed outside the Brookhaven, Mississippi, courthouse.
The victim had worked on the campaign of a man running against the incumbent in a county supervisor race.
The run-off election for the supervisor was to take place days after the shooting.
Three white men, Noah Smith, Mack Smith, and Charles Falvey, were arrested for the shooting. According to an August 17, 1955 Daily Worker article, a state Coroner’s Jury heard testimony for four hours on the night of August 16 and then ruled that the victim had died as a result “of a gunshot wound in an altercation with Noah Smith, Mack Smith and Charles Falvey and probably other parties unknown.”[1]
SOURCE : https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/lamar-smith
P.S.
Historical FACTS is why I let people argue for or against support for the 2nd Amendment and why IDGF.
From foreign and domestic ….
“On the morning of August 13, 1955, white men shot and killed Lamar Smith, a 63-year-old Black farmer and veteran of World War I, in front of the Lincoln County Courthouse in Brookhaven, Mississippi, while he was encouraging African Americans to vote in a local run-off election. Mr. Smith, a voting rights advocate affiliated with the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, had been threatened and warned to stop trying to register and organize African American voters in the community. His murder took place on the courthouse lawn in front of dozens of witnesses, including Sheriff Robert E. Case, who permitted one of the alleged assailants to leave the crime scene covered in blood. Days later, that man and two others were arrested in connection with the shooting. All three suspects were white. In September 1955, a grand jury composed of 20 white men declined to indict the three suspects for murder after witnesses failed to come forward to testify.
Following the grand jury’s report, District Attorney E.C. Barlow criticized the lack of witness cooperation and complained about the sheriff’s handling of the case.
Despite Barlow’s public promises to proceed with the investigation, the criminal case against the three suspects was dismissed and no one was held accountable for Lamar Smith's murder.”
SOURCE : https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/aug/13
2.) LAMAR SMITH - NOTICE TO CLOSE FILE
CIVIL RIGHTS
It is recommended that the above case be closed for the following reasons:
Case Synopsis
On the morning of August 13, 1955, Lamar Smith, an African-American World War I veteran active in voter registration drives, was shot and killed outside the Brookhaven, Mississippi, courthouse.
The victim had worked on the campaign of a man running against the incumbent in a county supervisor race.
The run-off election for the supervisor was to take place days after the shooting.
Three white men, Noah Smith, Mack Smith, and Charles Falvey, were arrested for the shooting. According to an August 17, 1955 Daily Worker article, a state Coroner’s Jury heard testimony for four hours on the night of August 16 and then ruled that the victim had died as a result “of a gunshot wound in an altercation with Noah Smith, Mack Smith and Charles Falvey and probably other parties unknown.”[1]
SOURCE : https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/lamar-smith
P.S.
Historical FACTS is why I let people argue for or against support for the 2nd Amendment and why IDGF.
From foreign and domestic ….
Aug. 13, 1955 | White Men Lynch Voting Rights Activist Lamar Smith in Mississippi
Learn more about our history of racial injustice.
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COL Randall C.
Agree - gerrymandering is a bipartisan issue and
That's one of the issues. As pointed out, there are others:
● Political gerrymandering
● Overwhelming control by one party
● Lawmakers' salaries are low
● Party affiliation with an unpopular president
I'll add one more - facing an incumbent.
A great site to get 'in-the-weeds' information on all aspects of politics in the US (and very unbiased as it's almost pure number crunching) is Ballotpedia*.
According to it, in the 2023 Elections there are four states having legislative elections - Mississippi, New Jersey, Virginia, and Louisiana.
Across the country in the 2023 elections, only a bit more than a quarter (26%) of the state office incumbents (only 115 of 443) face a contested primary (since 2011, a low of 12% in 2013 to a high of 29% in 2019).
Since 2011, incumbents at the state level are only defeated, on average, about 3% of the time.
--------------------------------------
* https://ballotpedia.org/
That's one of the issues. As pointed out, there are others:
● Political gerrymandering
● Overwhelming control by one party
● Lawmakers' salaries are low
● Party affiliation with an unpopular president
I'll add one more - facing an incumbent.
A great site to get 'in-the-weeds' information on all aspects of politics in the US (and very unbiased as it's almost pure number crunching) is Ballotpedia*.
According to it, in the 2023 Elections there are four states having legislative elections - Mississippi, New Jersey, Virginia, and Louisiana.
Across the country in the 2023 elections, only a bit more than a quarter (26%) of the state office incumbents (only 115 of 443) face a contested primary (since 2011, a low of 12% in 2013 to a high of 29% in 2019).
Since 2011, incumbents at the state level are only defeated, on average, about 3% of the time.
--------------------------------------
* https://ballotpedia.org/
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CPL LaForest Gray
Over 200 years ago, Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts signed a bill that allowed for the redrawing of electoral district lines. Today, the practice is...
https://youtu.be/1BNJiUu-1E8?si=nQ5WHd4UMS6npmI0
A Founding Father in Dissent
Elbridge Gerry Helped Inspire Bill of Rights in His Opposition to the Constitution
Summer 2006, Vol. 38, No. 2
“The term gerrymandering is a portmanteau of a salamander and Elbridge Gerry, Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander”.
During his second term as governor of Massachusetts,
in 1811, Elbridge Gerry, upset with the Federalist Party's outspoken opposition to President James Madison's foreign policy, approved a controversial redistricting plan designed to give the Republican Party an advantage in the state senatorial elections.
The Federalist press responded to this plan with cartoon figures of a salamander-shaped election district—the "Gerrymander"—a term still used to connote an irregularly shaped district created by legislative fiat to benefit a particular party, politician, or other group.
Gerry would be rewarded by the Republicans for his staunch support by being elected in 1812 as Madison's Vice President.
In late 1814, the 70-year-old Gerry died in office. He was buried in Washington, DC.'s Congressional Cemetery, and Congress erected a monument over his grave.
This monument, the first done at the nation's expense, contained the words that Gerry spoke and tried to live by: "It is the duty of every man, though he may have but one day to live, to devote that day to the good of his country."
Today, as well as for the at least the last 150 years, most Americans have never heard of Elbridge Gerry, though many have heard the term "gerrymander." This undoubtedly would have disappointed him.
SOURCE : https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/spring/gerry.html#:~:text=During%20his%20second%20term%20as,in%20the%20state%20senatorial%20elections.
2.) How Gerrymandering Began in the US
Long before it got its name, Gerrymandering was already happening in the United States.
In March 1812, the Boston Gazette ran a political cartoon depicting “a new species of monster”: “The Gerry-mander.” The forked-tongue creature was shaped like a contorted Massachusetts voting district that the state’s Jeffersonian Republicans had drawn to benefit their own party.
Governor (and future vice president) Elbridge Gerry signed off on his party’s redistricting plan in February, unwittingly cementing his place in the United States lexicon of underhanded political tricks.
Federalist newspapers in Massachusetts reprinted the cartoon with its portmanteau of “Gerry” and “salamander,” helping the new word to take off. Although the pronunciation has changed over time—Gerry’s name is pronounced like “Gary,” but Americans now pronounce the word bearing his name like “Jerry”-mander—the meaning has mostly remained the same: gerrymandering is when politicians redraw voting districts to benefit their political party.
[ THE TERM "GERRYMANDER" STEMS FROM THIS GILBERT STUART CARTOON OF A MASSACHUSETTS ELECTORAL DISTRICT TWISTED BEYOND ALL REASON. STUART THOUGHT THE SHAPE OF THE DISTRICT RESEMBLED A SALAMANDER, BUT HIS FRIEND WHO SHOWED HIM THE ORIGINAL MAP CALLED IT A "GERRY-MANDER" AFTER MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR ELBRIDGE GERRY, WHO APPROVED REARRANGING DISTRICT LINES FOR POLITICAL ADVANTAGE. ]
SOURCE : https://www.history.com/news/gerrymandering-origins-voting#
3.) The Birth of the Gerrymander
September 2008
The legend of the gerrymander came into being in 1812 at a meeting of Federalist political leaders and newspapermen in Boston. Complaints about the efforts of their Jeffersonian Republican opponents to rig state elections by altering voting districts led artist Elkanah Tisdale to add a head and wings to an outlined map of a new senatorial district in Essex County and name it the “gerrymander” after the leader of the Jeffersonians, Governor Elbridge Gerry.
While a different map of Massachusetts that outlines the district in the context of Essex County shows that the district was not grotesquely misshapen by the standards of modern gerrymandering, the cartoon shocked the public and proved very effective.
SOURCE : https://www.masshist.org/object-of-the-month/objects/the-birth-of-the-gerrymander-2008-09-01
A Founding Father in Dissent
Elbridge Gerry Helped Inspire Bill of Rights in His Opposition to the Constitution
Summer 2006, Vol. 38, No. 2
“The term gerrymandering is a portmanteau of a salamander and Elbridge Gerry, Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander”.
During his second term as governor of Massachusetts,
in 1811, Elbridge Gerry, upset with the Federalist Party's outspoken opposition to President James Madison's foreign policy, approved a controversial redistricting plan designed to give the Republican Party an advantage in the state senatorial elections.
The Federalist press responded to this plan with cartoon figures of a salamander-shaped election district—the "Gerrymander"—a term still used to connote an irregularly shaped district created by legislative fiat to benefit a particular party, politician, or other group.
Gerry would be rewarded by the Republicans for his staunch support by being elected in 1812 as Madison's Vice President.
In late 1814, the 70-year-old Gerry died in office. He was buried in Washington, DC.'s Congressional Cemetery, and Congress erected a monument over his grave.
This monument, the first done at the nation's expense, contained the words that Gerry spoke and tried to live by: "It is the duty of every man, though he may have but one day to live, to devote that day to the good of his country."
Today, as well as for the at least the last 150 years, most Americans have never heard of Elbridge Gerry, though many have heard the term "gerrymander." This undoubtedly would have disappointed him.
SOURCE : https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/spring/gerry.html#:~:text=During%20his%20second%20term%20as,in%20the%20state%20senatorial%20elections.
2.) How Gerrymandering Began in the US
Long before it got its name, Gerrymandering was already happening in the United States.
In March 1812, the Boston Gazette ran a political cartoon depicting “a new species of monster”: “The Gerry-mander.” The forked-tongue creature was shaped like a contorted Massachusetts voting district that the state’s Jeffersonian Republicans had drawn to benefit their own party.
Governor (and future vice president) Elbridge Gerry signed off on his party’s redistricting plan in February, unwittingly cementing his place in the United States lexicon of underhanded political tricks.
Federalist newspapers in Massachusetts reprinted the cartoon with its portmanteau of “Gerry” and “salamander,” helping the new word to take off. Although the pronunciation has changed over time—Gerry’s name is pronounced like “Gary,” but Americans now pronounce the word bearing his name like “Jerry”-mander—the meaning has mostly remained the same: gerrymandering is when politicians redraw voting districts to benefit their political party.
[ THE TERM "GERRYMANDER" STEMS FROM THIS GILBERT STUART CARTOON OF A MASSACHUSETTS ELECTORAL DISTRICT TWISTED BEYOND ALL REASON. STUART THOUGHT THE SHAPE OF THE DISTRICT RESEMBLED A SALAMANDER, BUT HIS FRIEND WHO SHOWED HIM THE ORIGINAL MAP CALLED IT A "GERRY-MANDER" AFTER MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR ELBRIDGE GERRY, WHO APPROVED REARRANGING DISTRICT LINES FOR POLITICAL ADVANTAGE. ]
SOURCE : https://www.history.com/news/gerrymandering-origins-voting#
3.) The Birth of the Gerrymander
September 2008
The legend of the gerrymander came into being in 1812 at a meeting of Federalist political leaders and newspapermen in Boston. Complaints about the efforts of their Jeffersonian Republican opponents to rig state elections by altering voting districts led artist Elkanah Tisdale to add a head and wings to an outlined map of a new senatorial district in Essex County and name it the “gerrymander” after the leader of the Jeffersonians, Governor Elbridge Gerry.
While a different map of Massachusetts that outlines the district in the context of Essex County shows that the district was not grotesquely misshapen by the standards of modern gerrymandering, the cartoon shocked the public and proved very effective.
SOURCE : https://www.masshist.org/object-of-the-month/objects/the-birth-of-the-gerrymander-2008-09-01
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CPL LaForest Gray
CONGRESS
John Lewis Voting Rights Act passes in combined package with Freedom to Vote Act
Congresswoman Terri Sewell, D-Alabama, originally sponsored the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
SOURCE : https://www.alreporter.com/2022/01/14/john-lewis-voting-rights-act-passes-in-combined-package-with-freedom-to-vote-act/?amp
The Freedom to Vote Act
The bill would protect our elections from voter suppression, partisan sabotage, gerrymandering, and dark money.
SOURCE : https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/freedom-vote-act
John Lewis Voting Rights Act passes in combined package with Freedom to Vote Act
Congresswoman Terri Sewell, D-Alabama, originally sponsored the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
SOURCE : https://www.alreporter.com/2022/01/14/john-lewis-voting-rights-act-passes-in-combined-package-with-freedom-to-vote-act/?amp
The Freedom to Vote Act
The bill would protect our elections from voter suppression, partisan sabotage, gerrymandering, and dark money.
SOURCE : https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/freedom-vote-act
John Lewis Voting Rights Act passes in combined package with Freedom to Vote Act
Congresswoman Terri Sewell, D-Alabama, originally sponsored the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
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