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The Bulletin compiles news from in and around the US South. We hope these posts will provide space for lively discussion and debate regarding issues of importance to those living in and intellectually engaging with the US South.
- The Army Corps of Engineers is planning to close a controversial freshwater diversion that appeared to be building new land at West Bay at the mouth of the Mississippi in the lower Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. The Corps now plans to use sediment dredged from the river to accomplish the same goal of rebuilding wetlands on the Louisiana coast.
- Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann is seeking federal approval for the state's new voter ID law (House Bill 921). Hosemann is in the process of estimating how many Mississippi voters currently lack proper identification under the new law. He claims that the bill does not suffer from the same issues that led the Justice Department to reject similar proposals in Texas and South Carolina earlier this year.
- The US Supreme Court handed down a ruling yesterday in the case of Fletcher v. Lamone which upheld Maryland's "No Representation Without Population Act." The law was enacted in 2010 to ensure that incarcerated persons would be counted as residents of their home addresses when the state drew new legislative districts. Large populations of incarcerated persons had previously been counted in the districts in which they were imprisoned (prison-based gerrymandering). Passage of the bill (passed as HB 496 and SB 400) in 2010, and its affirmation in the nation's highest court on Tuesday, was heralded as a major civil rights victory.