Democrats Challenge Justice's Redistricting Review in Miss.


By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 16, 2002; Page A06


A band of House Democrats yesterday accused the Justice Department of politicizing the Voting Rights Act, using it to undermine black voting strength in Mississippi and to boost the chances that Rep. Charles W. "Chip" Pickering Jr. (R) will defeat Rep. Ronnie Shows (D) in the November election.

"This manipulation of the Voting Rights Act to disenfranchise minority voters raises questions about your administration's commitment to civil rights in general and whether your Justice Department can carry out a fair review of minority voting rights in redistricting plans across the country," eight Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to President Bush.

Justice Department spokesman Dan Nelson denied the charges, saying, "The department's review of this matter will be conducted in a principled fashion and in a manner consistent with the department's treatment of all redistricting plans submitted for review," he said.

The Democrats contend that the Justice Department has waited until the last minute to raise questions about a pro-Democratic, pro-minority redistricting plan in order to further delay by 60 days the department's "preclearance," which is required in southern states before changes in election laws can take effect.

The consequence of the delay, the Democrats wrote, is that a separate plan backed by "a panel of three Republican-appointed federal judges" that weakens black voting strength and favors Pickering will become the law for the 2002 election. Boundaries for the state's congressional districts must be set by March 1. District lines drawn by federal judges do not require preclearance.

The state and federal court plans put two incumbents, Pickering and Shows, in the same Jackson-based district. In the state court plan, the district has a 37.5 percent black voting age population. In the federal court plan, the district has a 30 percent black voting age population and adds a number of strongly Republican precincts from white suburbs to the east of Jackson in Rankin County.

"The bottom line is that it appears the department is going out of its way to create novel and unique legal arguments which merely serve to delay the pre-clearance procedure unnecessarily and facilitate adoption of a discriminatory redistricting plan. This turns the Voting Rights Act on its head," wrote the Democrats led by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich).

In southern congressional elections, the percentage of black voters can be crucial to the outcome, especially in a state like Mississippi, where whites have become strongly Republican and blacks remain a reliable Democratic constituency.

Pickering's campaign manager, Henry Barbour, said questions raised by the Justice Department are "pretty serious" and state Attorney General Mike Moore will need a substantial period of time to answer then. "The hurdle is high for anybody to handle the kind of questions Justice is asking," he said. But he also noted that the delay increases the likelihood that the pro-Pickering federal court plan will be used in the 2002 elections.

Officials in Moore's office said they will try to get answers to Justice as soon as this weekend.

Shows issued a statement charging that the Justice Department "stalls again" and saying that "preclearance should not be used as a political tool."


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