The Mississippi Legislature no longer has to redraw its state Supreme Court district maps to create a majority Black district after a federal court vacated an order requiring the State to create a new map that complies with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a motion to cancel U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi District Judge Sharion Aycock’s 2025 order in Dyamone White et al v. the State Board of Election Commissioners that required the Legislature to redraw the 1987 map to give more voting power to Black Mississippians.
Voting rights advocates filed a federal lawsuit in 2022 alleging that the three majority-white districts used for electing Mississippi Supreme Court justices violated the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution by denying Black voters the option to elect a justice of their choice.
“Although Mississippi’s population is almost 40% Black, none of the three districts from which voters elect justices to the Mississippi Supreme Court is a majority Black district,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi said in an April 2022 statement announcing the challenge. “The lawsuit asserts that Mississippi Supreme Court boundaries deny Black voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect candidates of their choice.”
When ruling on Louisiana v. Callais on April 29, the majority Republican-appointed U.S. Supreme Court decided the Louisiana map relied too heavily on race, with Justice Samuel Alito calling it “an unconstitutional gerrymander.” That decision severely weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which was designed in the 1960s to ensure representation for Black voters in the Jim Crow South, to the point that Justice Elana Kagan declared it “all but a dead letter.” The Court’s decision determines how states can draw voting districts based upon race under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
This U.S. Supreme Court’s disarming of the 1965 law directly led to the 5th Circuit’s dismissal of Aycock’s order, Gov. Tate Reeves said in a celebratory social media post that mentioned the State had requested the 5th Circuit to vacate the order.
“A good day for those who believe in the principle that all Americans are created equal. A good day for law and order. A good day for Mississippi!” the governor wrote on Monday afternoon.
Reeves did not signal whether or not the Legislature would still convene for the special session, which is set to begin on May 20. Reeves had ordered the session to allow lawmakers to reconsider Mississippi’s Supreme Court districts upon the conclusion of Louisiana v. Callais. The Mississippi Free Press reached out to his office to get an answer about the special session but did not receive a response by press time.
Dyamone White, et al v. the State Board of Election Commissioners was ordered back to Aycock’s court for further proceedings.
During the 2026 Mississippi legislative session, lawmakers kept two redistricting bills alive in case the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision on Louisiana v. Callais before the session adjourned in April. Both bills died on sine die, April 15, which Reeves said “deprived the Mississippi Legislature of its undisputed federally recognized right to a meaningful first opportunity to remedy the Section 2 violation found by the court” in Dyamone White, et al v. the State Board of Election Commissioners.
In 2025, the Mississippi Legislature redrew its state House and Senate district maps to add more Black-majority districts after a district court ruled in 2024 that the state’s previous map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
