Lawmakers to convene for special session to redraw state supreme court districts at building with racist history
When Mississippi lawmakers met in 1861 and voted to secede from the union in an effort to continue enslaving people, they did so in what is now known as the Old Capitol Museum. From 1839 to 1903, lawmakers met at a building that witnessed some of the state’s most racist history.
And now, on 20 May, when members of Mississippi’s house convene for a special session to redraw state supreme court districts, they will do so at the Old Capitol, ostensibly because of renovations in the house chamber.
“And now they plan to do it in the Old Capitol, the same building where Mississippi voted to secede from the Union over slavery, and where white supremacist delegates crafted the 1890 Constitution that stripped Black citizens of their voting rights and ushered in decades of poll taxes, literacy tests and racial terror,” Taylor said in a statement. “Rep Kabir Karriem is right. It is a slap in the face to the 1.2 million African Americans in this state. It is also a confession. They are returning to the scene of the crime to try and finish the job.”
They’ll drag the Federal government with them this time. And fleeing to blue states only helps them do it.
False. Just as the south tried to stop the great migration because of the lost labor. Blue voters are the only thing keeping state governments alive. Even more so with the 2030 census. Red states need to show stagnant population growth or reduced. That’ll impact their standing in the electoral college and representation in the house. Add in billions lose in tax revenues. If you want to stay fine. But blue states welcome all.
Unfortunately most of our blue states have shot themselves in the foot by making it too difficult to privately build dense housing while also not using public resources to build densely in sufficient amounts either. Blue states were generally already nicer places to live so they filled up and sprawled out a while back after that it’s been harder to keep stapling on homes near cities with decent economies. Whereas most red states are a lot emptier and still have that room to sprawl out development near their economic engines… so that’s where the building happens and the people are drawn in by more affordable housing. Eventually red states will sprawl out too much and the low hanging fruit will be gone but for the time being they’re still building like crazy in places like South Carolina.
Population is growing and the household sizes have been shrinking so more homes are needed to house fewer people. But existing housing stocks decay and possibly become unusable if not cared for and constantly need to be replenished. If blue states want to grow their population they have to overcome interest groups and obstacles opposed to either making it easier to build housing or the government itself building housing in sufficient quantities.
Zoning and housing laws can be changed. Blue states have more than enough space to expand. The bluer the state your arguments become less relevant. The Bluest states are already close to passing universal education and Healthcare for their population. Special interest groups lose power the bluer the states become. #makebluestatesdarkblue
The only way red states see the light is if they look around and see no young people staying and blue states thriving. Once again, the great migration forced them to socially give rights to minorities not federal laws.
I agree that those laws can be changed and I would like that to happen. There is room for expansion still in blue states - not so much horizontally because generally any place that could be sprawled out within a long commute near a city with a decent economy has had that happen already. People also won’t move to houses built in the middle of nowhere where no jobs are available. But, there can be much more vertical, denser building. Even returning to historic densities would be a big help in buffing blue states politically (ex. Manhattan had a peak population of 2.3 million in 1910 but is now only 1.7 million.) But there is a big NIMBY problem to overcome before getting there since homeowners have big incentives to oppose new housing whatever the source, and those special interests have not disappeared just because the states are blue.
Below are two photos of internal migration by state and new housing permits per capita. Since housing is THE major cost in most people’s budgets there is a flow going towards where housing is cheapest. Some have actually coined the term “New Great Migration” as many African Americans are now coming to the South on net. This is buffing the political power of those states even while the politics are rather rancid.
Once again solvable. That chart didn’t show currently empty housing. Blue states have issues but acting as if those issues aren’t the same or even worse in red states is a falsehood. Red states need to be poorer, empty of young working adults, and devoid of investment. That’s how they’ll learn. And that’s what they fear the most. Imagine once their male to female ratio hits 2 to 1. Their birth rate will fall. Their future will be dependent on changing for the better.
I’m not saying it’s unsolvable, just that it’s not solved right now which is why there is currently a stream of people going to red states that are building. That needs to be fixed to stop before that stream can be turned around. I want that solved so more people can afford to live in states that aren’t psycho! Red states have indeed not solved NIMBYism either but their advantage is that building single family homes in sprawl around major cities is easier under current zoning regimes than building up; they can still build that low hanging fruit since they historically were less desired places to live and had lower populations, whereas the best spots for that easy to build sprawl have generally already been built a while back in blue states.
Here’s the chart of vacancy rates. I considered new housing permits more relevant in the last post because people are putting money on the line that the house they’re building is worth it either for themselves to live in or to sell or rent to someone else, so generally that’s tied in with proximity to a local economic center. If considering vacant houses the problem is that say if the local mill shut down and the place has no jobs then maybe they have a ton of vacant homes after much of that community left but no one wants to live there since you can’t make a living. So ex. West Virginia has a huge number of vacant homes but they no longer have the economic centers that made most of them viable so people are generally still moving out rather than in. Whereas say the Carolinas have well developed economies in the areas where they are building & and are building at a huge clip so the large number of vacancies from new construction are desirable and many people are flooding in to buy those relatively cheap homes near decent jobs.
The census is in 4 years. If red states in total have population decline numbering in the millions we can make real change. If you or anyone you know is in a red state, they need to vote with their tax money by relocating. It’s tough but doable. My family did it back during the great migration when they literally had nothing. It gave our family a better way of life for decades. I don’t see how anyone can stay when your freedoms are being taken away so rapidly at the state level. And now blue votes in red states are pointless. That leaves very few options for individuals to make any impact. At least in a blue state their vote will go towards the electoral college. If movement in this happens red states will go into complete panic and change ideologies because they’ll have no future without progressing to the modern world.
Realistically red state depopulation is not happening by next census. There has already been substantial net migration towards red states since the last one and it would be quite a tall order to go back to the 2020 status quo in time let alone to substantially reverse those migrations. And the regressive policies of red states aren’t unknown; most people making those moves just consider them less as important than the housing affordability angle as evidenced by them still making those moves even as many are getting more extreme in policies. In theory it would be easy to game the electoral college if people moved in organized ideological ways but most people are moving for mundane kitchen table reasons rather than for their rights and ideology.