[07/10/01] JACKSON Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District should not stretch from the northern Delta to Wilkinson County, state Rep. George Flaggs of Vicksburg said Monday, lining up against one aspect of a redistricting plan offered by Mississippi Republicans.

Flaggs, a Democrat, said the size of the proposed district would prevent U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, also a Democrat, from serving all of his constituents effectively.

“It would be too expensive,” said Flaggs, a member of the Joint Legislative Redistricting Committee who was speaking at a luncheon sponsored by the Capitol press corps and Mississippi State University’s Stennis Institute of Government. “It’s too far to travel for the congressman’s office.”

The 24-member redistricting committee is having to address the political and regional concerns tied up in the redistricting process, which could culminate in a special session of the Legislature this summer. Mississippi is having to merge five U.S. House districts into four because the state grew more slowly than others in the 1990s.

Because Republican Chip Pickering of District 3 and Democrat Ronnie Shows of District 4 are expected to live in the same district after new maps are approved, each party has a plan before the board that would favor its incumbent and tinker with the makeup of the state’s other three districts.

Dubbed the “economic development” plan, the blueprint criticized by Flaggs favors Pickering. While including GOP strongholds like Meridian and Rankin County in the new 3rd District, the economic development map proposes a long, narrow 2nd District that would reach from Tunica County in the northern Delta to Wilkinson County, which borders Louisiana on the south.

“That’s too long of a district, unless you want to travel by the Mississippi River,” said Flaggs, Warren County’s senior legislator. “If it can’t remain the same size, it should be widened.”

Another plan, offered by the Democrat-leaning Community Coalition, gives Shows an advantage over Pickering and widens the 2nd District to include part of Tate and all of Panola and Tallahatchie counties. It includes most of Madison and half of Hinds counties.

“It’s anybody’s guess how it could turn out,” said state Sen. Mike Chaney, R-Vicksburg.

Chaney said the 2nd District could be lengthened to include Adams and Wilkinson counties as long as it complies with Justice Department regulations by maintaining a 58 percent minority voting-age population.

“I would not have a problem with that,” he said. But Chaney said he will not support the Coalition plan, which he said serves the interests of Democrats “with malice over the interests of all Mississippians.”

Charlie Hohrn, a spokesman for Thompson’s Bolton office, distanced the congressman from the Coalition map. Thompson only wants the district to include “like-natured communities” and have a minority voting-age population of about 60 percent, Hohrn said.