GREENWOOD, Miss.—Robert Sims is a proud Bennie Thompson supporter. But Sims values his right to choose a candidate even more.
“It makes me feel like I’m a part of this country. That I’m a U.S. citizen,” Sims, who is the chair of the Leflore County Democratic Party Executive Committee, told the Mississippi Free Press on Oct. 8. “That my needs will be listened to and recognized. We’re just so proud of (Bennie Thompson) and we want to keep him. If for some reason, he decides not to run, we want to be in the position where we can elect a candidate of our choice.”
The 23rd annual Beans and Greens Dinner at the Andrew McQueen Jr. Civic Center in Greenwood, Mississippi was all about the importance of voting and representation. Leflore County is in the heart of the Mississippi Delta and Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District, served by U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson since 1993, the state’s only Black congressman. The dinner event is an offshoot of old Democratic Party gatherings in the 1960s and 1970s. With scant resources, party organizers relied on affordable foods to feed guests.
This year, there was obvious excitement in the air. Sims, who helps organize the dinners, said around 300 tickets were sold and the dinner itself had around 225 attendees, the largest attendance in years.
Bishop Milton Glass of the New Green Grove Church of Faith said during his invocation that the gathering had “an atmosphere of church.” A local music group, “Harvest,” led by Itta Bena resident T.W. Cooper, sang songs throughout the evening.
The message from the night’s speakers was simple: vote.
“We need to stay on people and go vote,” said Mississippi Sen. Justin Pope, D-Pope. “Only way your vote don’t matter is if you don’t go vote.”
Redistricting Looms
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision in April turned the 1965 Voting Rights Act on its ear. Section 2 of the act allows Black voters to challenge what may be racially gerrymandered electoral maps, whether they were designed to dilute the power of minority voters or if that was the downstream effect. But even before Louisiana v. Callais, plaintiffs needed to clear a substantially high legal bar for their challenge to be successful.
While Section 2 was not ruled unconstitutional, the justices raised the bar for a Section 2 claim significantly higher. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, said “the focus of (Section 2) must be enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment’s prohibition on intentional racial discrimination. When (Section 2) of the Act is properly interpreted, it imposes liability only when circumstances give rise to a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred.”
As a result, the court found that a Section 2 violation must demonstrate that states intentionally drew districts to afford minorities less voting power due to race. This includes controlling for any partisan impact and showing that racial voting patterns in a district cannot be explained by partisan affiliation.
Reaction in Mississippi came swiftly. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals revoked an order requiring the State to redraw its supreme court maps while the U.S. Supreme Court reversed an order requiring Mississippi to redraw its legislative districts. The latter case, which was remanded to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi to determine whether private groups can file Section 2 claims.
Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson has ordered counties affected by the court-ordered redistricting to begin reverting to the 2022 maps. Legislators also held a series of hearings around the state to allow citizens to share their thoughts on redistricting. But as of now, redistricting plans have not been formally announced.
‘This Is Not a Sport’
At the final redistricting hearing in Jackson on Oct. 1, Mississippi State Auditor Shad White said the state should consider redistricting in order to unseat Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has also set his sights on Thompson, commenting that Thompson’s “reign of terror” would soon be over.
“There’s a silent majority of people who want better representation for the Mississippi Delta. They want somebody better than Bennie Thompson. They want somebody who is not focused on running the Jan. 6 committee,” White said on Oct. 1. It has been 20 years since Thompson earned less than 60% of the vote in a reelection bid.
Thompson chaired the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, which was tasked with investigating the causes of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol building. He has also been highly and vocally critical of President Donald Trump.
Robert Sims said he believed much of the animosity toward Thompson was rooted in his role on the committee.
“See, Mississippi is a red state. Very, very red,” he said. “And a lot of white caucasians in this area and across the state say it was embarrassing to them to be a red state, Republican state, and you’ve got a Black Democrat chairing the committee.”
Sims pointed to how Republicans went after the committee’s vice chair, former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, who represented Wyoming’s at-large district. Cheney, one of Trump’s few Republican critics in Congress, was challenged and defeated in the district’s primary race in 2022.
“They did all they could and when she got back home, they defeated her,” Sims said. “But the Republicans now want to do the same thing with Bennie Thompson and the only way they can do that is to redistrict. They can’t do it right now because he’s running in a district that’s 65% Black and they know it will be almost impossible to do. So now, they want to redistrict so they can get him out.”
The dinner’s keynote speaker, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom, promised to help end partisan gerrymandering if he defeats incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. He pushed back on allegations that Thompson is responsible for the Delta’s current state.
“Tate Reeves represents the Delta. Phil Bryant before him represented the Delta. The lieutenant governor represents the Delta,” Colom told the Mississippi Free Press after the dinner. “Bennie Thompson ain’t the only person who represents the Delta. If you look at how they’ve been allocating money, they’re the people who have been letting down the Delta.”
Troy Brown, the Democratic nominee for Senate in 2000 against then-incumbent Trent Lott, said he feels Republican leaders too often only talk about the Mississippi Delta in a critical manner. Brown also said Thompson was not responsible for drawing his district—it was state Republicans who did that.
“Bottom line, when it’s all said and done, we have earned our right to have representation. Bennie Thompson is that person. If not Bennie, it will be someone else,” he told the Mississippi Free Press. “This is not a sport, and sometimes I get the feeling that it’s more of a sport than a labor of service.”
“As Troy has said, Congressman Thompson didn’t draw his district, but he is in this district,” said Troy’s wife, former Mississippi Senate candidate Curressia Brown. “He is bringing home resources for this district, millions of dollars, and when the voters decide that he’s not doing what he needs to do, then let the voters decide. But we don’t need someone else deciding we don’t have sense enough to decide for ourselves, so let’s redraw the lines.”
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