JACKSON - Race really isn't the lowest common denominator in Mississippi legislative politics any longer - it's partisanship.
House Democrats provided Mississippi with a strong example of the truth of that new political truism on March 18 as debate on what was at first believed to be a rather innocuous affidavit ballot bill erupted into a Democratic Party loyalty fight.
As shown by the sudden racial rancor that the Voter ID issue raised in the debate of House Bill 1435, the three distinct groups that came together late in 2003 to form an uneasy if unwavering political coalition united behind new House Speaker Billy McCoy are still evolving.
HB 1435 emerged as a measure to allow affidavit ballots, which are used by voters whose names are not on the rolls, to serve as a request for a change of address.
But the racial aspects of the Voter ID issue erupted when white Republican Reps. Jim Ellington and Bill Denny, both of Jackson, proposed an amendment that would require voters to show identification when using affidavits. The amendment initially passed 77-45, with significant support from white Democrats.
But in the emotional hours of debate that ensued well into the evening of March 18, some 37 members of the House took to the podium to speak for or against the Denny-Ellington amendment.
In separate Web site reports, Democratic Rep. John Mayo, D-Clarksdale, and Rep. Greg Snowden, R-Meridian, confirmed that a number of black state legislators spoke eloquently against the amendment citing fears of voter intimidation and recounting personal experiences of racism and disenfranchisement.
But the debate took a decidedly partisan turn. Black lawmakers - a key member of the tenuous coalition of Black Caucus Democrats, rural white Democrats and white Republicans that keeps both the Democratic Party in general and Speaker McCoy and his kitchen cabinet specifically in power - sent their fellow white Democrats a less-than-subtle political message.
The message was plain - there would be political consequences for white Democrats who abandoned black Democrats in their opposition to HB 1435.
"We must realize there are three different factions in this body, and today it is driven home," said black state Rep. Chuck Middleton, D-Port Gibson. "From now on, whoever comes to this podium, I can assure you, I will vote on it from a merit standpoint and not a party standpoint."
While there were forces among white Democrats who tried to spin debate reaction toward a crisis of conscience that forced white Democrats to retreat from their prior votes in favor of the Ellington-Denny amendment to their 72-47 vote against the final version of the bill, it was clear that McCoy and his white Democratic supporters changed their amendment votes to maintain control of the Democratic majority in the House.
The HB 1435 vote was not at all a vote based in race, although race guided the fate of the bill. The vote was about keeping party ranks.
Republicans control the Governor's Mansion and have tacit control of the state Senate. House Democrats headed into critical conference committee negotiations can't afford to expose a political Achilles' heel in terms of party division.
White Democrats who originally voted for HB 1435's Voter ID amendment retreated not because they didn't believe that the bill had merit, but because they couldn't keep their coalition together otherwise. That is the mark of a legislative system in which partisanship, not race, is clearly the bottom line.
