House Redistricting Plan Deserves More Time for Voter Reaction
Congress Demands Voters have 72 Hours to Review Proposed Legislation, Why Not the Mississippi House?
Oxford, MS – With weeks of work done by the Mississippi House and Senate in proposing new district lines for voters over the next 10 years, the House is asking its members to vote to approve the lines just 24 hours after the proposed plan is revealed. On behalf of the taxpayers of our state, Mississippi Forward asks that members of the Legislature go home over the weekend and gather reviews from voters in their home districts before voting on any new lines.
Mississippi Forward Chairman Howie Morgan said, “Thanks to the internet and the wonders of modern technology voters across the nation are now able to offer more insight into proposed legislation than ever before. The Mississippi House should follow the example of the United States Congress and allow voters 72 hours to review the proposed plan.”
Early opposition to the proposed plan includes the fact that many small cities in Mississippi are unnecessarily split up, voters feel legislators worked more to help incumbents rather than eliminate district confusion, and that more review is needed for voter input.
Morgan further stated, “I understand why some of our largest cities are broken up to draw coherent lines, but I do not understand how they can draw some of the proposed lines in our smaller cities. What they have done to places like Starkville is just truly bizarre.”
Some of the towns needlessly broken up include Brookhaven, Carthage, Clarksdale, Cleveland, Eupora, Grenada, Magee, Mendenhall, McComb, Meridian, Natchez, Oxford, Philadelphia, Picayune, Senatobia, Starkville, Tylertown, Wiggins, Winona, and Yazoo City.
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Mississippi Forward is the Mississippi affiliate of the National Taxpayers Union, a nonprofit, non-partisan citizen group whose members work every day for lower taxes and smaller government at all levels in our state. For more information see www.MississippiForward.org
