Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has called a special legislative session to address redistricting for the Mississippi Supreme Court, saying the Legislature will convene 21 days after the U.S. Supreme Court issues its ruling on Louisiana v. Callais. That case will determine the constitutionality of Louisiana’s congressional districts.
Louisiana v. Callais came to fruition after a Louisiana district court declared that the state’s 2022 congressional map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it did not have enough Black-majority districts, considering the size of Louisiana’s Black population.
The majority Republican-appointed U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was designed in the 1960s to ensure representation for Black voters in the Jim Crow South, is constitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the Voting Rights Act in the past, but the current one, one-third of which is made up of appointees of President Donald Trump, is significantly more conservative.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s current term is set to end in June 2026, and it is expected to issue a decision on Callais before adjourning.
“It is my sincere hope that the United States Supreme Court will reaffirm the animating principle that all Americans are created equal and that when the government classifies its citizens on the basis of race, even as a perceived remedy to right a wrong, it engages in the offensive and demeaning assumption that Americans of a particular race, because of their race, think alike and share the same interests and preferences—a concept that is odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality,” Reeves, who last week proclaimed April as Confederate Heritage Month, posted on social media Friday afternoon.
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.”
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi agreed, declaring in Dyamone White et al v. the State Board of Election Commissioners that Mississippi’s state Supreme Court district map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. That case is on appeal in the 5th U.S. Court of Appeals, but is currently on hold until after decisions have been made for another case in the 5th Circuit and two cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, including Louisiana v. Callais.
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.
Under the Mississippi Constitution, the governor is allowed to call special sessions “whenever, in his judgment,” the public interest requires it. Reeves said public interest and federal law require him to convene the Legislature for a special session “for the sole and exclusive purpose of (and for no other purpose unless otherwise expressly authorized herein) being afforded a meaningful first opportunity to adopt an electoral map for the Mississippi Supreem Court to remedy the Section 2 violation found by” the court in Dyamone White, et al v. the State Board of Election Commissioners.
