Senate Democrat suing state over Mississippi Supreme Court map named by Hosemann to help redraw lines

• Senate Minority leader Derrick Simmons is a plaintiff in the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center lawsuit to upend Mississippi’s judicial districts. He’s been named one of three senators to help redraw the map, putting him on both sides of pending litigation.

In 2025, U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock ruled decades’ old judicial district lines, used for the election of the Mississippi Supreme Court, violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Among the plaintiffs in the suit — which argued that the existing North, Central and South judicial districts diluted Black voting strength — is Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons (D). Aycock ordered the Legislature to redraw the maps or else.

Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann (R) recently named Simmons as one of three Senate conferees tasked with negotiating final legislation to overhaul the state’s Supreme Court map, placing a lead litigant against the state at the center of the remedy process. He is joined by Republican Senators Brice Wiggins and Joey Fillingane as conferees. House conferees include State Representatives Kevin Horan, Jansen Owen and Joey Hood, all Republicans.

Judge Aycock’s ruling concluded that the state’s three Supreme Court districts were drawn in a way that prevents Black voters from having an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.

Rather than impose a map herself, Aycock gave the Legislature the first opportunity to fix the violation. Lawmakers are now under pressure to produce a compliant plan during the 2026 session or risk a court-ordered map.

Aycock’s ruling comes at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is actively deliberating a case that could prevent the use of race-based decisionmaking in how electoral maps are drawn.

White plaintiffs in Callais v. Louisiana have argued that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is an unconstitutional violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Additionally, there are cases percolating through the U.S. Court of Appeals challenging whether private citizens can sue under Section 2. In Arkansas State Conference NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals found that citizens did not have a private cause of action and only the Department of Justice could sue under Section 2.

Either of these cases could prove fatal to the ACLU/Southern Poverty Law Center lawsuit.

Simmons, State Both in Precarious Position

Simmons now finds himself placed in a delicate position, arguably legally conflicted position. He’s negotiating legislation that directly responds to a lawsuit in which he is a plaintiff. Basically, he is on both sides of the litigation at this point. If he signs on to a plan with his fellow legislators, it might create legal arguments that could be used against his co-plaintiffs should they still object to the Legislature’s solution.

If he fails to sign on, it could create additional legal arguments against the state. One could reasonably assume he will not do anything to weaken the pending litigation to which he is a party.

The state is also in a precarious position. It has filed an appeal to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, but the appellate court is holding the case in abeyance pending the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision. The 5th Circuit has not, however, stayed Aycock’s decision in the interim, meaning that it remains in force.

The Legislature could redistrict the Supreme Court maps before they leave town to comply with Aycock’s ruling only to find out months later that the exercise was unnecessary because the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated Section 2, or separately, that it gets tossed for lack of judicial standing of the named plaintiffs.

But if the Legislature does nothing and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upholds Section 2 or the Fifth Circuit finds the plaintiffs had standing, Aycock may impose her own court-drawn map. Already her ruling is blocking judicial elections scheduled for November of this year pending a newly approved map.

That has already had real-world consequences. The court’s order disrupted the 2026 election cycle, preventing at least one sitting justice, David Ishee, from qualifying for reelection under the existing districts.