In 2001, House Speaker Tim Ford of Baldwyn supported the plan of fellow Democrats to place much of suburban Jackson in a congressional district with northeast Mississippi. Explaining the congressional redistricting effort featuring the Tupelo to Jackson district, Ford off-handedly dubbed it âthe tornado planâ because of the way it looked on the map. Fordâs intent was not to sabotage the plan, and most likely opposition to the plan would have been intense regardless of what it was called, but the âtornadoâ moniker stuck and not in a good way. Indeed, the moniker helped galvanize opposition. The political landscape of the state was much different in 2001, though in hindsight the writing already was on the wall portending the rise of the Republican Party and fall of the Democratic Party.