Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann removed Senate Minority Leader Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, from the Legislature’s joint redistricting committee after the senator co-authored a letter urging Hosemann and House Speaker Jason White to reconsider redistricting efforts.
“I appreciate the opportunity that the lieutenant governor afforded me to continue my service on the select committee,” the Senate minority leader told the Mississippi Free Press on Friday. “As you know, I was appointed in 2022 to be a member of the select reapportionment and redistricting committee, but I do recognize that committee assignments do remain within his prerogative and I respect his authority to make those decisions.”
The letter, co-authored by Simmons, Mississippi House Minority Leader Rep. Robert Johnson and Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus Chairman Rep. Kabir Karriem, said the Legislature should only redraw state Supreme Court maps and should create those districts to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and “one-person, one-vote principles.”
Although Mississippi Today broke the news to the general public on Aug. 21, Simmons said Hosemann informed him of the decision to remove him from the selection committee back in June.
Sen. Albert Butler, D-Port Gibson, will replace Simmons on the select committee. Simmons said he informed Butler of the decision back in June, along with saying he looked forward to working with Butler and Sen. Angela Turner-Ford, D-West Point—the only other Democrat on the select committee.
The Mississippi Free Press called Butler’s office and Hosemann’s communications director to interview the lawmakers but did not receive a response before press time.
“Whether I was on the committee or not, my position regarding my opposition to mid-decade redistricting remains the same,” Simmons told the Mississippi Free Press.
The Democrats said they worried new redistricting efforts would further diminish Black voters’ representation in the state Legislature and U.S. Congress, pointing out that despite 38% of Mississippians being Black, the state only has one majority-Black congressional district—that being the 2nd Congressional District headed by U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson. The Mississippi Legislature has 56 Black lawmakers, representing 32% of legislators.
“Going backwards and eliminating existing opportunity districts would be unlawful, creating serious legal risks and headaches for candidates, voters, and election officials—saddling the taxpayers with unnecessary legal bills,” the letter says. “The Legislature cannot and should not revert to lines or schemes that have already been determined to dilute Black voting strength, which would constitute intentional discrimination. Indeed, it does not need to draw new lines at all.”
The letter also said that if the Legislature were to continue with redistricting, the House and Senate leaders needed to provide adequate representation, transparency and enforcement during the process while remembering redistricting’s history and why ensuring equal representation for minority voters is necessary.
“We urge that any consideration of these issues take place subject to the highest level of government transparency and the customary safeguards and procedures traditionally associated with redistricting,” the letter says. “Accordingly, if these committees are to move forward, we strongly urge adherence to the established redistricting protocols used in prior cycles, including publicly noticed and live-streamed hearings, opportunities for meaningful community input, and the release of thorough committee findings and reports.”
The Democrats encouraged Hosemann and White to have joint meetings on redistricting for the House and Senate to come together to legislate “under the same rules and procedures.” They argued for community hearings across the state; committee reports on maps, recommendations and findings. They also called for committee hearings so minority lawmakers can call witnesses to testify on Mississippi’s apportionment history, Voting Rights Act enforcement, the U.S. Supreme Court case Louisiana v. Callais and the role of representation in the state’s legislative, congressional and judicial districts.
The House and Senate each have redistricting committees as well as the Mississippi Standing Joint Legislative Committee on Reapportionment and Redistricting that includes members from both chambers.
Members of the joint redistricting committee will hold hearings across the state over the next two months to hear from voters about how lawmakers should draw the state’s legislative, congressional and Supreme Court district maps.
Each of the eight hearings will be held at 6 p.m. on their respective days and are scheduled through August and into September. The Mississippi Legislature’s YouTube channel will broadcast all the hearings live. Legislators have already visited Itawamba Community College in Tupelo on Aug. 18. The next hearing is at Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia on Aug. 27. Hearings that follow include Delta State University in Cleveland on Sept. 1; Alcorn State University in Natchez on Sept. 8; Meridian Community College in Meridian on Sept. 10; the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg on Sept. 17; Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in Gulfport on Sept. 22; and the Mississippi Capitol Building in Jackson on Sept. 24.
Mississippi’s redistricting push comes after President Donald Trump last year urged Republican-led states to redistrict in order to increase Republican chances of keeping the House in GOP control. Mississippi’s neighbors, including Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee, have already approved new congressional maps, and this week, a Missouri judge cleared the way for Missouri lawmakers to use updated legislative maps in this year’s elections.
Mississippi has not acted with the urgency of its neighbors, but redistricting has been on the minds of several lawmakers. Mississippi’s current effort came after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican majority curtailed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—a key provision that has long prevented states from enacting racially gerrymandered maps for the purpose of diluting the voting power of racial minorities. In recent years, federal courts have ordered Mississippi to create more majority-Black legislative and state Supreme Court districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act, but the Callais decision has already reversed those rulings.
Mississippi had already taken efforts in 2025 to update its legislative maps after a federal court determined its existing maps did not offer Black voters equal participation in the voting process. Those updated maps aided Democrats in cracking the Republicans’ Senate supermajority, capped with the election of Sen. Johnny Dupree, D-Hattiesburg. Dupree’s election was the first time Hattiesburg had ever elected a Black senator to represent the city despite the population being 51% Black.
Also in 2025, U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi Sharion Aycock ordered Mississippi to redraw its state Supreme Court map, first adopted in 1987, to give more voting power to Black Mississippians, in compliance with the Voting Rights Act. More than a third of Mississippians are Black, but all three districts—which each elect two Mississippi Supreme Court justices—are majority-white.
Voting rights advocates filed a federal lawsuit in 2022 alleging that those three districts violated the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution by denying Black voters the ability to elect a justice of their choice. But after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana vs. Callais, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals approved a motion vacating Aycock’s order. Subsequently, Gov. Tate Reeves canceled a special legislative session in May to redistrict the state’s Supreme Court map.
Now, with the Voting Rights Act’s potency severely diminished by the U.S. Supreme Court Republican-appointed majority’s Callais ruling, those gains Black voters made could be rolled back with a new round of redistricting.
Reeves floated the possibility of a special session for legislative redistricting this year when talking to reporters last month at the Neshoba County Fair. During a special session, the Legislature may only consider topics explicitly called for by the governor. Redistricting may require lawmakers to convene before the Feb. 1, 2027, qualifying deadline, but Reeves has not yet set a special session to consider redistricting.
“That’s going to take a little bit of time to get all of that together,” he told reporters on June 25, referring to redrawing legislative, congressional and state Supreme Court district maps. “But I would not be surprised if there is a special session to deal with redistricting sometime between now and when the next legislative session begins, but we will definitely have our redistricting done before the 2027 election.”
It is unknown how far redistricting will go if a special session does come together, though Republican leaders have generally praised the Callais decision. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said the ruling put “an end to years of federal overreach” in Mississippi’s redistricting matters, but Reeves and other white Republicans have made clear their hopes to redraw Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District, Mississippi’s only majority-Black congressional district and home to Mississippi’s only Black congressman, Bennie Thompson.
Follow the Mississippi Free Press’ coverage of voting rights and read past stories here.
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