Thread by @ashtonpittman

One thing I want people interested in making Mississippi better to understand: If your goal here is a "blue wave," you have the wrong goal.

Mississippians don't need someone else to be their voice. They need their voices heard. They need their words to matter. 1/

Pre-2007, if you wanted to be in the majority party in MS, you had no choice but to be a Democrat for ~100 years.

Since 2011, if you want to be in the majority, you've had to be a Republican.

But MS was No. 50 in most of the good rankings on both ends of these timescales. 2/

Mississippi politics went through drastic change in the 2000s, from Democratic-dominated to Republican-dominated.

But you know what didn't change (aside from health rankings, etc)?

Voting. Under Dem or GOP overlords, we remained one of the states with the least democracy. 3/

As I told @jordanzakarin, a "blue wave" is the wrong goal in this state—not just because it's currently unobtainable, but because we already know from past experience that simply changing parties doesn't fix our lack of true representative democracy. 4/

And lawmakers in the Mississippi Legislature aren't as narrowly constrained by party labels as ones in D.C.

There are Mississippi Republicans who want LGBT hate crimes laws and there are Democrats who voted to ban transgender children from school sports. 5/

There are Republicans in the Mississippi Legislature who support things like expanded health care access & public education & who want more access to democracy. These aren't "Democratic" issues.

Simply changing the partisan makeup won't get you there. 6/

A small group of leaders at the top of the Legislature routinely blocks legislation that both Democratic & Republican lawmakers want. And gerrymandering helps ensure that enough of the "right" kind of Republicans or Democrats are elected to help leadership keep tight control. 7/

Combine that with the fact that ~240k Mississippians (incl. 130k Black citizens) are permanently barred from voting due to our 1890 Jim Crow felony voter law, & you have a state gov't that doesn't truly represent all the people. 8/

About 4 in 10 Mississippians are Black. Our top 8 state officials? All white.

Our elected Mississippi Supreme Court? 8 of 9 justices are white. 8 of 9 justices are men. 9/

Mississippi's high & disproportionate poverty rates contribute. Social science research shows that poverty is associated with lower levels of voter turnout.

Among white Mississippians, the poverty rate is 12%.

Among Black Mississippians? It's 31%. 10/

That's why one 51% Black Mississippi Senate district kept reliably electing a white Republican senator.

It was drawn to include poorer than average Black Mississippians (poverty rate: 40%) and wealthier than avg white residents (~9% poverty rate). 11/ jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/mar/…

But here's the deal: With serious ground-up work to grow Mississippi's democracy, citizens here could make change through elected representatives whether under a Republican or Democratic-majority government. And why is that? 12/

The Mississippi Legislature isn't Congress. There are Republican and Democratic members who want to improve public education, increase health care access, increase democracy, etc.

Their focus isn't national. They aren't generally people planning runs for president someday. 13/

The average member of the U.S. House represents about 760,000 people that they almost never see.

The average MS House member represents ~24,000 people, many who they see every day. These are people in their local towns and communities.

It's not as easy to ignore them. 14/

Greater voter enfranchisement in Mississippi (which can also include orienting people just to believe their voice matters) can have a much greater impact of members of the Mississippi House than on members of the U.S. House.

Same with the MS Senate. 15/

Here's a little secret: Many in the MS Legislature don't actually care that much about their party ID.

A lot of members who are now Republicans were Democrats a few years ago. Their views didn't really change.

Ex: The No. 2 House Republican was a Dem until a few years ago. 16/

The key is: Who do leaders hear from? Who are the voters who are empowered to make their voices heard? Who not only has access to their leaders and to the ballot box, but feels they have access and feels their voices matter and can can help make change? 17/

So just changing the partisan makeup of the Mississippi government won't solve our issues. But changing the makeup of who lawmakers hear from and who they believe they must be responsive to can make a difference. 18/

Journalists who simply focus on the red vs. blue horse race politics coverage don't do voters any favors—especially not in Mississippi.

Because the reality isn't red vs. blue. It's a lot more complicated than that here. 19/

Mississippi politics can screw with your idea of who supports what.

You may think (based on national politics) that Democrats automatically lean toward greater democracy while Republicans always lean toward less.

Not always so in MS. 20/ mississippifreepress.org/6010/bipartisa…

Consider these comments on citizen ballot initiatives:

A. "We should adopt the referendum language bc our bosses (voters) indicated that’s what they want."

B. "The initiative process is a bad idea. It’s a terrible way to make public policy."

A—an R senator
B—a D senator 21/

Simply changing the conditions so that more lawmakers felt they needed to switch their party label (as many Democrat > Republican lawmakers did over the past 20 years) won't necessarily create more democracy. 22/

So don't look at partisan change in Mississippi politics as the pathway to progress.

Dems dominated the Legislature for 17 years of my life; Republicans dominated it for the past decade.

At no point in my life has #MSLeg shown a grand commitment to expanding democracy. 23/

The pathway to changing Mississippi politics isn't by shuffling parties & politicians. It's by including the voices of more people, more voters & making those voices louder & more powerful.

Some leaders will change as a result, while other leaders will be changed. 24/

If you want to make progress in Mississippi, the right question isn't, "How can I help further the cause of the Democratic Party?" (Or any other party)

The right question is, "How can I help further the cause of democracy?" 25/