Mississippi Democrats decry governor’s special session call for state Supreme Court redistricting

• The Mississippi Democratic Party alleges that Republicans seek to draw maps designed to silence black voters. Yet, Governor Reeves argues that lawmakers have not had a fair opportunity to draw a new map because of the pending Callais decision.

The news that Governor Tate Reeves (R) would be calling a special session to address state Supreme Court redistricting drew a swift response from the Mississippi Democratic Party.

READ MORE: Governor sets special session to address State Supreme Court redistricting

Reeves said late Friday that 21 days after the U.S. Supreme Court issues its ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, he will call Mississippi lawmakers in for a special session to handle state Supreme Court redistricting after the Legislature chose not to take the matter up during this year’s regular session despite a federal judge’s order.

Lawmakers chose to allow an appeal to work its way through the system while the U.S. Supreme Court weighed the constitutionality of racial gerrymandering under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The state’s Supreme Court district maps have not been redrawn since 1987. The Supreme Court district maps are also used to elect Northern, Central and Southern district transportation commissioners and public service commissioners.

READ MORE: Mississippi Supreme Court redistricting dies as U.S. Supreme Court decision over racial gerrymandering nears

“The entire world knows the Callais decision has not yet been handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is a decision that could (and in my view should) forever change the way we draw electoral maps,” Governor Reeves wrote, adding it his “sincere hope” that, in deciding Callais, the U.S. 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.”

The Mississippi Democratic Party “condemned” the governor’s special session call, saying the move is “a continuation of a deliberate Republican campaign to strip Black Mississippians of political representation and saying plainly that what Mississippi Republicans are doing is racist.”

“What Tate Reeves announced today is not a good-faith effort to comply with the law,” said Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Cheikh Taylor, who is also a State Representative. “It is a plan to exploit a pending court ruling to do what Mississippi Republicans have always done, draw maps designed to silence Black voters… We are going to call this what it is: racist. And we are going to fight it.” 

While Reeves’ special session call only mentioned state Supreme Court redistricting, the Mississippi Democratic took the matter further, claiming “at least 29 of Mississippi’s 60 Black-majority legislative seats could be eliminated if Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is weakened,” a reference to efforts in other areas of the U.S. where legislators are redrawing congressional and legislative maps ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

“After three of the last four census cycles, federal courts have been forced to order Mississippi to redraw maps that unconstitutionally diluted Black voting strength. Republicans have appealed, delayed, and maneuvered at every turn. Today’s announcement is the latest chapter in that story,” the Mississippi Democrats contend.

Special legislative elections were ordered to be held in 2025 after a judge mandated new maps be drawn to accommodate racial gerrymandering in the Pine Belt and north Mississippi areas to increase black voting strength in certain districts.

The governor, however, argued that it is his belief “and federal law requires” that the Mississippi Legislature be given the first opportunity to draw these maps, “and the fact is, they haven’t had a fair opportunity to do that because of the pending Callais decision.”