There is a new redistricting decision out from the Supreme Court of the United States from a North Carolina lawsuit. The decision came down yesterday, and I have not had a chance to read it myself. I will follow up with an analysis later, but I wanted to put the information out here immediately for those of you who may be dealing with redistricting issues or merely gearing up for 2011.
It appears that the Supreme Court has indicated that there is no duty to draw voting districts taht would elect black candidates in areas where blacks are less than a majority. The decision was 5-4. The Court said (Kennedy, J., writing the majority) that officials need not consider race when drawing districts for state legislatures, county boards, city councils and school districts, so long as blacks did not make up a voting majority in a particular area. Justice Kennedy suggests that this decision could “hasten the waning of racism in American politics” by making race less of a factor in drawing electoral districts. More later…
Just a reminder: The annual Mississippi Municipal League Salary survey is currently underway. We’ve received about 70% of the surveys to date. If you are a City Clerk or Personnel Director for one of Mississippi’s 297 municipalities, please make sure that you’ve completed the survey. Previous salary surveys can be found here:
www.msgovt.org/policy.html
The county survey will be mailed in June 2009.
Representative Blackburn will be the speaker at the annual Price Prather Luncheon at The Mississippi Bar Association Annual Meeting in July of 2009 at San Destin. The Price Prather Luncheon is sponsored by the Women in the Profession Committee of The Mississippi Bar. Justice Prather is Mississippi’s first woman Supreme Court Justice and Mississippi’s first woman Chief Justice. Judge Price was the first woman judge in Mississippi. For additional information, please contact Melanie Henry at The Mississippi Bar. mhenry@msbar.org
District 41 Senator Lydia Chassaniol was honored this week by the Mississippi Tourism Association as the 2008 MTA Legislative Friend of Tourism recipient for her aggressive support of the industry.
Chassaniol, of Winona, is Chairwoman of the Senate Tourism Committee, and has promoted tourism at every turn, seeking venues all across the state to which Mississippi can draw travelers who can learn some aspect of its unique history and art forms.
Chassaniol’s leadership has been well recognized throughout the state and she continues to push forward, exposing Mississippi’s best to the outside world.
With the qualifying deadline for Mississippi municipal elections approaching, some potential candidates might be interested in knowing what the pay would be to serve in a local government position. Also, citizens might want to know how much department heads and elected officials in their local government earn. And then there are some people who just want to know the range of salaries for aldermen/city council members in local governments around Mississippi.
These and many more answers can be found in the 2008 Municipal Salary and Benefits Survey, which is prepared by the John C. Stennis Institute of Government for the Mississippi Municipal League. Click here for the online report.
Persons interested in running for municipal office will surely want to check out the Municipal Elections 2009 Candidate Qualifying Guide published by the Secretary of State’s Office.
By nature of my day job and general interest in communication techniques I read a lot of e-mails, press releases and blogs by public officials. These communiques range from sanitized, politically correct, meaningless press releases that say nothing to freewritten, meaningless greetings that also say nothing. Somewhere in the middle of the continuum is the personal message from a public official who communicates WHY he or she is doing something, along with some personal information that makes me feel that I know and understand the communicator.
One such person is a state representative from Mississippi named John Mayo. (Click here for his home page.) There are political positions that he and I probably would not agree on, but his communication style and methods make me feel that he knows his job, he cares about his constituents and he is open about his stands on issues. Not only does he tell why he introduced a piece of legislation, he mentions things he is concerned about in his community and he even offers up movie reviews. Public officials who are considering starting a blog would be well-advised to check out his communications. Now for the warning: do not attempt to copy Mayo’s style; be yourself.