Mississippi will not redraw any of its electoral districts this month. Gov. Tate Reeves canceled a special legislative session to redistrict the state’s Supreme Court map after a federal appeals court determined that the state no longer needs to create a majority-Black district. SuperTalk reported Wednesday morning that Reeves said that “there is no reason for the legislature to come in.”
But the governor is urging the Mississippi Legislature to redraw its legislative, state supreme court and congressional lines before the 2027 elections, when state legislative seats will be on the ballot. He also vowed that the state’s only Black congressman’s “reign of terror” will be “over” soon, referring to Democratic U.S. House Rep. Bennie Thompson.
“Just to clarify, I said I expect lawmakers to redraw congressional lines BETWEEN NOW and 2027 elections! I also expect them to redraw legislative and Supreme Court lines between now and 2027 elections,” Reeves posted on social media Wednesday morning.
In 2025, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi Judge 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 of 1965. 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 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.
But in its Louisiana v. Callais ruling on April 29, the majority Republican-appointed U.S. Supreme Court largely neutralized Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which has long ensured southern states couldn’t lock Black voters out of representation. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently vacated the order for Mississippi to redraw its state supreme court districts.
In 2025, the Mississippi Legislature redrew its state House and Senate district maps to add more Black-majority districts after another court similarly ruled in 2024 that the state’s previous map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by having too few districts where Black voters could elect candidates of their choice. Now, with the Voting Rights Act severely diminished, those gains Black voters made in representation in Mississippi could be rolled back if the Legislature redraws maps.
Since the Callais ruling, several white Republican-led southern states have rushed to eliminate Black-majority districts, including Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee. South Carolina lawmakers yesterday stopped a redistricting attempt that would’ve eliminated the seat held by U.S. House Rep. James Clyburn, the Palmetto state’s only Black member of Congress, after five Republicans balked at the plan despite pressure from President Donald Trump.
Thompson Vows to Fight Redistricting
Gov. Reeves has hinted that he wants lawmakers to redraw Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District, which U.S. House Rep. Bennie Thompson has held for over three decades. Even though Mississippi is the state with the highest Black population by percent at 38%, Thompson is the only Black or Democratic official among the state’s roster of eight statewide-elected state leaders, two U.S. senators and four U.S. House representatives.
“I will continue to fight against any effort to redraw my congressional district,” Thompson vowed in a May 11 social media post.
Thompson’s district, which includes the Mississippi Delta and most of the capital city, Jackson, is 64% Black. After Congress made amendments to the Voting Rights Act in 1982, Mississippi created a majority-Black district following a federal court order that said its districts diluted Black voting power.
After court-ordered redistricting in 1986, voters in Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District elected Mike Espy, the first Black man elected to Congress from Mississippi since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era in the late 1800s. Espy left the U.S. House in 1993 after then-President Bill Clinton appointed him to serve as U.S. secretary of agriculture, and voters elected Thompson to replace him. Democratic voters renominated Thompson, 78, for another term during the March primaries.
Reacting to Thompson’s May 11 post, Reeves wrote that the 2nd Congressional District does not belong to Thompson.
“Bennie Thompson calls MS-2 ‘my congressional district.’ No Sir. MS-2 is not YOUR congressional district,” wrote the governor, who annually declares April as Confederate Heritage Month. “It is the people of Mississippi’s!! Congressman Bennie G. Thompson’s reign of terror on MS-2 is over. It is not a matter of ‘IF…’ Just a matter of ‘WHEN!’”
On April 30, Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Cheikh Taylor, a Black state representative from Starkville, said it would be “egregious” for Republican lawmakers to encourage drawing the 2nd Congressional District lines to include more white voters than minority voters. Having a majority-minority district does not mean only Democrats or minorities would get elected, he said—it just means minorities have a fair chance to elect candidates of their choosing.
“There is a potential that if it’s tampered with too much, it actually may have an ill effect or an unwanted effect when it comes to conservatives,” he told reporters at an April 30 press conference at the party’s headquarters in downtown Jackson. “With 40% of the (state’s population being Black), there’s not a lot of places you can go to redistrict Black voters out and Black politicians out.”
Blackwell: ‘It’s Time to Erase Bennie Thompson’s District’
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, a white Republican, extended praise to President Donald Trump for appointing “common sense” conservative Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch. Those appointments cemented the 6-3 conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court, leading to the overturning of federal abortion rights, the end of affirmative action in college admissions and the further erosion of the Voting Rights Act.
“Redistricting based on race has always been wrong,” Hosemann said in a Wednesday social media post. “Today’s Supreme Court ruling reaffirms one of Mississippi’s fundamental states’ rights and puts an end to years of federal overreach from Washington, D.C. Redistricting should be accomplished by the legislators Mississippians elect to represent them, and we have consistently proven we are more than capable of managing our own elections.”
Mississippi Senate Medicaid Committee Chairman Sen. Kevin Blackwell, a white Republican from Southaven, simply called to eliminate the state’s 2nd Congressional District.
“It’s time to erase Bennie Thompson’s District,” he said in a social media post on April 29.
Mississippi State Auditor Shad White, a white Republican, has also said repeatedly that he wants Mississippi to redraw its congressional districts to eliminate Thompson’s district, which he said is currently racially “gerrymandered.” Mississippi’s other three congressional districts are all more than 60% white.
“This likely opens the door to redrawing Mississippi’s congressional districts. Mississippi might no longer have a district drawn to protect Bennie Thompson,” White posted on social media on April 29 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. White is considering a run for governor in the 2027 election, although he has not made an official announcement yet.
This morning, Mississippi Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson, a 2027 candidate for governor, joined White’s call for lawmakers to eliminate Thompson’s district.
“Mississippi Conservatives agree with me, it is time for Bennie Thompson to go,” the white Republican wrote.
White welcomed Gipson’s support for eliminating Thompson’s district in a video post on Wednesday morning, and suggested President Donald Trump could help pressure state Republicans to eliminate the Democratic congressman’s seat. Thompson, who served as the chairman of the January 6th Committee investigating Trump’s role in the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, has long drawn the president’s ire.
“Bad news is that the Legislature now no longer has any plans to come back to Jackson to take up congressional redistricting,” the state auditor said. “But look, President Trump has been pushing for this and putting pressure on lawmakers in states like South Carolina to come in and do redistricting, and I suspect he’ll put pressure on Mississippi politicians to do the same.”
