The most necessary news site in the United States, the incredibly brave people who run the liberal “Mississippi Today,” brings us a report that just screams “Only in Mississippi.” (Mississippi Today is also the site that uncovered Brett Favre’s possible crime that could implicate the current and former governor. I mentioned necessary?)
In Mississippi, just like many other parts of the country, the local D.A. and the Judges are voted on by the citizens of the district or county. Or, at least, it was that way until the Mississippi legislature decided that there would be an exception for Jackson, the nation’s blackest city, and Hinds County, the county in which Jackson sits.
While reading below, note that the poorest states have some of the richest people because the disparity is just so large and wages so low. There are a few areas in the city of Jackson that are incredibly wealthy, and apparently, they weren’t happy being outvoted by the majority of Black Americans in the city.
A white supermajority of the Mississippi House voted after an intense, four-plus hour debate to create a separate court system and an expanded police force within the city of Jackson — the Blackest city in America — that would be appointed completely by white state officials.
If House Bill 1020 becomes law later this session, the white chief justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court would appoint two judges to oversee a new district within the city — one that includes all of the city’s majority-white neighborhoods, among other areas. The white state attorney general would appoint four prosecutors, a court clerk, and four public defenders for the new district. The white state public safety commissioner would oversee an expanded Capitol Police force, run currently by a white chief.
The appointments by state officials would occur in lieu of judges and prosecutors being elected by the local residents of Jackson and Hinds County — as is the case in every other municipality and county in the state.
If you are asking… No, I don’t see how this would be constitutional, either. A state is supposed to have one system. Perhaps the city and county on their own could change the system they use, perhaps. But that would never happen. So the legislature imposed the system on Jackson, undoubtedly at the insistence of those “moneyed” areas. A lawsuit will surely be filed in federal court that will end up in the Fifth Circuit… easily the most conservative circuit in the country.
Mississippi, Goddamn, as the song goes.
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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, SUBSTACK: MUCH LEFT ADO
So why don’t the white folks in Jackson do like so many other well-to-do white folks have traditionally done when they don’t like the “colored” folks getting all uppity and becoming the majority in the city? You know, we tend to call it “white flight”: They just move out of the “majority-minority” city for some new majority-white development or they just take their current area(s) and declare their own new city.
Although, I guess this way involves less work on the part of the white folks. (We all know how lazy rich white folks are.)
Those racist fuckwads should go ahead and wear KKK robes on the floor in their legislature.
What no swim, tennis, golf, or pickleball communities behind a walled in gated castle,(clubhouse)? You know, where the only black folks are serving food, keeping the grounds, and cleaning the facilities. Am I time traveling like Billy Pilgrim? Is this the end of Reconstruction?
Sadly, something similar is about to be passed in Missouri, and with the GOP supermajority here, I don’t know how it can be stopped. Oh, and the legislature just made it so that children can open carry with no consequences, making things even more dangerous. I am so sick of this crap.