A McComb selectman who was one of two votes Tuesday to oppose new ward lines said he had concerns with the racial makeup of the city’s redistricting plan, which reconfigured the city’s political boundaries following a loss in population over the past decade.
McComb officials adopted a map to redistrict the city’s wards with a 3-2 vote after much debate on the fairness of the new ward lines. Selectmen Devante Johnson, Shawn Williams and Ronnie Brock voted in favor of the plan. Selectmen Ted Tullos and Michael Cameron opposed. Selectman Donovan Hill was absent.
Attorney Carroll Rhodes of Hazlehurst, who the city hired to handle redistricting, presented the third draft of his map Tuesday.
Cameron expressed his concerns after Rhodes made his presentation.
“We try to redistrict because the population changes and the population changes in white and Black, correct?” Cameron asked.
“No, the total population changes,” Rhodes replied. “People leave and the population moves within the city.”
“But we have to keep the wards conducive and our representatives of our population of the city, correct?” said Cameron in response.
“Each ward has to have roughly equal population and that means having under a 10% total deviation,” said Rhodes to Cameron. “The target here was under 5% total deviation because I had so many people to leave McComb after the 2010 Census.”
Rhodes said he was attempting to keep wards compact, as they had not been.
“Let me ask it another way,” Cameron said. “Why are there three black wards, one white ward and a swing ward?”
Rhodes said McComb had a nearly 71% Black population. Under the new map, Ward 1 has a majority white population at 56%. The other wards have a majority Black population with Ward 2 at 69%, Ward 3 at 83%, Ward 4 at 80% and Ward 5 at 87%.
“The population of the city of McComb is majority Black and it’s where they live,” Rhodes said. “It’s where the people live.”
Cameron said he believed wards should be representative of the population.
“No. As a matter of fact, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act says you don’t have proportional representation,” Rhodes said. “You can’t have proportion if 30% of the city is one race. McComb lost a lot of population after the last census. Apparently, it looks like it might have been whites moving from the city to the county.”
Changes in Ward 2 to make it a majority-Black ward were inevitable. In the last round of redistricting 10 years ago, city officials adopted a plan that gave it a majority-Black population but with more voting-age white residents than Black residents, making it a swing ward.
Tullos, who represents Ward 1, noted population losses in Wards 3 and 5.
“I just thank the Good Lord I didn’t do anything in Ward 1 for the tremendous move like 3 and 5,” Tullos said.
“They should have been running from Ward 1,” replied Brock, who represents Ward 5.
Rhodes said many residents from wards 3 and 5 moved to Ward 2 since the 2010 Census was taken.
“As well they should,” Cameron replied.
Cameron said 31% of white people moved out of his ward the past 10 years yet he lost 41% of white voters. He said the Black population in his ward increased by 16.5% yet the map had a 45.8% increase in Black voters.
“Those numbers just look skewed to me,” he said.
“We didn’t move those lines that far into your ward, so evidently, the Black population lives close by Ward 3 and 5,” Rhodes replied.
The map approved Tuesday was the third revision. The first map Rhodes presented would have moved Cameron from Ward 2 to 5, the second put Cameron back in Ward 2 and was shown at a public hearing Monday.
Adding up each current ward’s deviation from the average ward population in the 2020 census created a total difference of 31.22%. Anything over 10% requires new lines to be drawn.
Rhodes moved some residents who would have been in Ward 2 on the second map to Ward 5 on the final map. That lowered the total population deviation to 4.27%.
“The ideal is try to keep the total deviation under 5% although legally you just have to keep it under 10,” he said. “The reason we keep it under 5 is so maybe 10 years from now when you all get ready to go through this redistricting process again, you won’t have to move as many people.”
Rhodes said the city’s population is 12,413 and the ideal population for each of the five wards is 2,483.
The plan approved Tuesday has 2,447 residents in Ward 1, which is 36 residents and 1.45% below average.
The plan has 2,550 residents in Ward 2, which is 67 residents and 2.7% above the average.
Ward 3 will have 2,498 residents, just 15 residents and 0.60% above the desired average.
Ward 4 will have 2,474 residents, nine residents and 0.36% below the average.
Ward 5 will have 2,444 residents, 39 residents and 1.57% below the average. Monday’s map had Ward 4 at 54 residents and 2.17% below the average.
