Chapter 7: The Deal
I understand why they picked DeSoto. We already covered that. This chapter is the other half.
There had to be something else to it for Watson, Fitch, Reeves, and Hosemann to risk so much political capital. To hide the map. To destroy what little was left of their conservative reputations by sitting at the same table with the ACLU. To spend a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayer money fighting their own base. To lie on the record and tell a federal judge there wasn’t time, then open qualifying two weeks later for a different judicial seat in the same county. To violate the constitutional rights of 86% of DeSoto County.
What was it?
I just couldn’t put my finger on why the “Republican” State leadership would fight so hard against us on stopping a gerrymandered judicial district in DeSoto — and even more mind-boggling, why they would team up with the ACLU and fight us in court. I spent months trying to see the angle. I knew it had to be more than state leadership just not liking DeSoto.
A deal had been made, at least that was the political rumor, and it was clear what the ACLU got out of the deal. They got a gerrymandered judicial district in DeSoto where two liberal judges could get elected and conservative judicial candidates had no chance. So the state had to be getting something to offset that from the ACLU. But what was it?
Then while one of the ACLU attorneys was cross-examining Representative Eubanks. He had flown in from New York, Chicago, DC or based on the accent maybe even straight from China, obviously doesn’t know our local politics or the details of the deal, so unknowingly he showed their hole cards and I caught it. He was going through the MARIS map census data that the state had included in the conference report and pointing out the racial breakdowns of the special district in DeSoto. Then he went through the special gerrymandered district in Jackson — the “Capitol Complex District.”
The Capitol Complex District is the Jackson elites’ dream — revitalize downtown Jackson around the Capitol, the state fairgrounds, the UMMC medical center and other state buildings as the anchor, make it the thriving center of business for our state again. The state’s biggest donors want it. Big developers of course want it. Same crowd that has spent thirty years trying to dam the Pearl River into lakes and waterfront lots next to downtown — Two Lakes, then One Lake. Flood control as the pitch to use taxpayer funds. Development in the fine print.
Aha. The dots connected in that moment. We had to go through all we had been through and wind up in a federal lawsuit with the entire Mississippi Good O’le Boy RINO Establishment and the entire National Liberal legal machine lined up against us in an old courtroom in Aberdeen, MS for it to all finally be revealed. That’s the deal the state’s top politicians made with the ACLU! That’s what this was all about!
The MARIS map packet with 2020 census data that was included in the conference report is sitting right there in black and white. Almost exact opposites.
Until January of this year, all anyone had seen was the large statewide map with a little pink spot in the upper corner of DeSoto. I’ll attach that and the census data from the MARIS map packet included in the conference report at the bottom.
DeSoto County is District 21. The whole county:
150,203 people.
64.80% White.
25.17% Black.
Voting-age: 67.13% White. 24.85% any-part Black.
Then look at Subdistrict 21-1, the sliver they slipped in on us:
35,111 people.
36.26% White.
52.40% Black.
Voting-age: 40.83% White. 50.52% any-part Black.
They didn’t draw the subdistrict to be competitive. They drew it to just clear 50%. Just enough to call it a majority-minority district. Just enough, pre-Callais, to claim the Voting Rights Act made them do it. That’s not coincidence, that’s the deal.
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