Ellington

A curious exchange took place between Rep. John Hines, D-Greenville, and Republican Speaker Philip Gunn of Clinton over the weekend, as the Legislature hammered a budget for state agencies. Hines, who'd forgotten to vote an earlier bill, asked if he could record a vote after the body had moved on. Gunn asked Hines teasingly if he had his voter ID, to which Hines retorted something to the effect of "I got my voter ID and my poll tax," which brought chuckles from the chamber.

It's all fun and games until someone subjects your grandma to a literacy test on Election Day.

On Tuesday, the Mississippi Senate unveiled its plan to add three majority-black districts, but pit two white Democrats against each other. In the House's plan, released last week, the number of majority-black districts increased by one, to 42, but might also eliminate as many as five white Democrats.

On its face, there's nothing nefarious about the plan. Lawmakers have to redraw the lines once a decade and, after all, elections have consequences. Adding a black district also gives redistricting architects cover to claim that no voter dilution "funny business" is going on. But that logic defies reality: Black folks in Mississippi don't just vote for black legislators, but they overwhelmingly vote Democratic, black and white.

So even by possibly adding to the number of African American representatives, the maps that will diminish the voices of black voters in Mississippi. Or at least that's how a court is likely to see it. Federal courts in recent years have shown little patience for anything with the faintest whiff of voter suppression. President Barack Obama's Justice Department blocked Arizona's and Alabama's ill-conceived anti-Mexican laws as well as voter ID in South Carolina. Meanwhile, a federal court rejected a Texas redistricting map that it said diluted African American and Latino voting strength.

If they've done anything this year, our state lawmakers have been hell bent on rolling back every constitutionally protected right they happen to disagree with. And for what? Republicans may hold electoral majorities for years to come without voter ID, scaring off immigrants or gerrymandering districts.

It seems to us that lawyers are going to have a field day with the Magnolia State in the next year or so, all at the expense of the nation's poorest taxpayers.

Even at the end of this state legislative session, make your voice heard on the issues that matter to you.