Six months ago, this columnist predicted that despite the best efforts – or what the various interests define as their best efforts – of all involved, Mississippi’s 2011 legislative redistricting battle would ultimately be resolved in the federal courts.

Led by longtime Mississippi voting rights attorney Carroll Rhodes of Hazlehurst on behalf of the Mississippi NAACP and three other plaintiffs, the first federal lawsuit was filed Thursday over the 2011 redistricting of the state’s 174 legislative districts. That suit was filed only hours after the state Senate invited conference on the House and Senate redistricting plans by a margin of 29-18 votes.

The case will be heard by Mississippi’s Southern District U.S. District Judge Dan Jordan of Jackson, who was appointed to the federal bench in 2006 by former President George W. Bush.

Now that redistricting has been effectively tossed into the courts, the impact on Mississippi voters and taxpayers is reasonably clear. In all likelihood, Mississippi will now be forced to hold and fund back-to-back state legislative elections in 2011 and again in 2012. While that’s not a certainty, it remains the most likely of outcomes.

Beyond that, the outcomes are less predictable. But there are some observations possible at this point from the bang-bang sequence of legislative and judicial events over the last 10 days.

 First, the 29-18 Senate vote to invite conference was a must-win vote for Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant and one that he won decisively with all 27 Senate GOP votes and the votes of Democratic Sens. Nickey Browning of Pontotoc and Tommy Dickerson of Waynesboro. Democratic Sens. Haskins Montgomery of Bay Springs and Bob Dearing of Natchez voted “present” while Democratic Sens. Eric Powell of Corinth and Bennie Turner of West Point “paired” their votes with Powell voting “yes” and Turner voting “no.”

Bryant caught political flak when his alternative redistricting map fell short among senators from both parties last week and a loss on the Thursday vote to invite conference over Joint Resolution 201 was perceived as a show of political strength by Bryant among Republicans – as Bryant’s political friends and foes alike eye his 2011 gubernatorial bid. Despite the uncertainty over redistricting, Thursday’s vote in the Senate was a clear Bryant victory – one he shares with Senate President Pro Tempore Billy Hewes of Gulfport.

Across the Capitol in the House, Democrats loyal to House Speaker Billy McCoy also believe they have a reason to declare a measure of political victory in the redistricting standoff. McCoy has vowed that the Senate would not manipulate the House redistricting map as the House did not manipulate the Senate map – a tradition that McCoy believes to be as much a matter of legislative decorum and respect as it is about the final redistricting maps.

“The House has respected the wishes of the Senate in approving the redistricting map for their chamber that the majority of senators approved,” said McCoy. “We did not change one iota of their plan for their chamber. Now, it is my intention that the House be treated with the same respect by the Senate. The Legislature is an equal branch of government with two equal chambers and we’re not going to change that based on anyone’s future political aspirations.”

If McCoy is resolute that he doesn’t intend to allow the Senate to participate in the drawing of the House redistricting maps, Bryant is equally resolute that the Senate has a legal and moral responsibility to participate not merely in Senate redistricting, but in overall legislative redistricting.

“If it’s not important that we go to conference committees on redistricting as we do on all other issues, then by that logic we should just have one chamber pass appropriations bills as well,” said Bryant. “That’s not logical and that’s not in my opinion constitutional. It’s time for us to go to the conference table and work out redistricting as we work out all other issues as a legislative body.”

This initial federal redistricting lawsuit seeks to have a federal judge redraw the existing legislative districts for the 2011 elections, claiming that the existing districts are unconstitutionally drawn based on the new 2010 census data. That suit is believed to be designed to ratchet up pressure to force Republicans to the negotiating table on the issue in the remaining weeks of the legislative session.

Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at 662-325-2506 or ssalter@library.msstate.edu.