Rotten Boroughs

The Second District of Mississippi is represented in Congress by Jamie Whitten, a 54-year-old ex-school teacher who knows that survival in Mississippi politics means talking against the government. He has voted against all of the Kennedy-Johnson program, and his votes have paid off for him. When his district was merged with another Congressman's in 1962, Whitten survived; he charged that his opponent had "gone to bed with the Kennedys" (by, for instance, voting for the Peace Corps). After 23 years in Congress, Whitten has risen to the chairmanship of the Subcommittee on Appropriations for Agriculture and may succeed to the chairmanship of Appropriations some day when the committee's four senior, older Democrats die.

But the Congressman's district has not prospered with him. In a state not notable for its wealth, the Second is the poorest Congressional District in almost everything, from education to automobiles. In the median income of its residents ($1968), it is the lowest Congressional District in the United States.

Whitten continues to vote against programs that would pull his district out of the mud, and the district continues to send him back to Washington. For in Whitten's district, only a few of the 59.1 per cent of the citizens who are Negroes can vote. And these are people whose poverty the government programs are designed to aid: their median income is $700 below the meager district-wide average.

This January, Mississippi's energetic Freedom Democratic Party will bring five of its members to Washington and ask the House to seat them in place of Jamie Whitten and his colleagues. They will ask this on the grounds that the system of Congressional representation has broken down. Congressmen are supposed to represent their constituents. Few Mississippi Negroes are permitted to vote for Congressmen, and 42 per cent of Mississippians are Negroes.

The House, which makes its own rules concerning the qualifications of its members, should not allow Congressmen who do not represent their districts to continue sitting. It should deny seats to Mississippi's Congressmen; if it wishes to ensure that representation is equitable, it should implement a system of federal registration for federal elections and call for new elections in Mississippi.

If all the Congressmen who are currently considering committee reforms and rules changes would concentrate Congress could unseat the Mississippi delegation. It would be a drastic reform, but it is time for the House to recognize that Mississippi's districts are boroughs as rotten as old Sarum ever was.