Thursday, April 26, 2012

Rep. Moak continues to question Rep. Denny on Denny map

Rep. Bobby Moak (D - Bogue Chitto) continues to question Rep. Bill Denny (R - Jackson) about the process of drawing the maps....

Moak presses Denny on what kind of input the members of the House had.  Denny compares it to "taking an order" at a restaurant.  Moak says Denny lost the burger and fries on his order.  Denny then admits to basically ignoring Moak's requests.

Moak then turns to the number of majority minority districts.  Moak asks Denny if it was true that the plan last year had one more majority minority district than Denny's plan.  Denny says that was conjecture.

Denny admits he has not had any contact with the Justice Department whatsoever.


Denny says he did not go back and review the minutes of meetings of the redistricting committee last year.

Denny keeps referring to "consensus 2" as the map that was drawn last year.  Moak asks him to clarify.  Denny says that was the map that passed the House.

Moak then turns to the "gentleman's agreement."  Denny says that he has talked to the members of the Joint Committee, but not about the House or Senate maps.  The Senate has not seen Denny's map, and Denny has not seen the Senate map.  Denny says he's not too concerned with what the Senate is doing.

Moak then asks why the plan was so late.  Denny says it was not late, that the plan was under review by experts.  Moak then asks if Denny is familiar with the statutory 15 day requirement.  Denny responds by saying "I'm familiar with our statutes.  I can best answer that by saying that I have superb counsel."  Pressed further, Denny says the plans were drawn 15 days prior to sine die.  (This is even though he made changes to the districts after 15 days prior to sine die.)

Denny then admits that he brought in House members to change the maps after the 15 day deadline. (Denny is running back and forth and talking to his lawyer the whole time this is going on.)

Denny then says that the computer would have captured the changes made after Friday.

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