Reeves’ decision to preemptively call a special session for judicial redistricting is shrewd

• The governor’s call has encouraged his fellow Republicans and angered Democrats.

Mississippi’s Republican Gov. Tate Reeves made a politically shrewd decision to issue a special session call to authorize lawmakers to draw new state Supreme Court district lines 21 days after the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a controversial Louisiana congressional redistricting case that many high court observers believe will weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA).

Reeves’ decision gives the GOP legislative majority a chance to draw new state Supreme Court lines for the first time since 1987 if the nation’s highest court indeed mandates changes in VRA interpretation of election law changes and enforcement. The governor’s call has encouraged his fellow Republicans and angered Democrats.

In Louisiana v. Callais, the nation’s highest court is deciding a constitutional challenge to a congressional district drawn to comply with the law’s requirement that election maps provide minority communities with an equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice. Observers believe the court could limit the use of race-based legal remedies to protect minority voters.

Section 2 of the VRA prohibits minority voting dilution through tactics, legislation, or practices that weaken minority voting strength. Section 2 prevents municipalities from enacting practices that give minorities an unfair disadvantage in electing candidates of their choice and has been held enforceable nationwide.

Another critical 1975 amendment to Section 2 of the VRA provided that proof of discriminatory purpose or intent was not required under a Section 2 claim.

Mississippi elections have orbited the VRA for over six decades, as have those of the rest of the southern states. It was evident that the promises of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would be difficult, if not impossible, to deliver without the passage of the Voting Rights Act. The VRA put some teeth in the CRA.

Under the VRA’s Section 5, any change in election laws and procedures must be subject to “preclearance” by the U.S. Justice Department before implementation. In 1965, “preclearance” was said to be a temporary requirement that would expire in five years.

The original law defined “covered jurisdictions” to include Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia. In addition, specific political subdivisions (usually counties) in four other states (Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, and North Carolina) were also covered.

In 1975, Congress extended and expanded the VRA, adding a “covered jurisdiction” formula that applied to Alaska, Arizona, and Texas in their entirety, and to parts of California, Florida, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, and South Dakota. In 2006, Congress extended the VRA for another 25 years.

In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in Shelby County v. Holder that it was “unconstitutional to use the coverage formula in Section 4(b) of the VRA to determine which jurisdictions are subject to the preclearance requirement of Section 5 of the VRA.” The Holder ruling held that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional unless Congress retooled it as a national safeguard against the denial of voting rights rather than as a regional safeguard applied primarily in the South. Congress never rose to address that judicial challenge.

Exacerbating the urgency of drawing new state Supreme Court district lines is a separate redistricting case that specifically addresses Mississippi’s current Supreme Court districts. U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock ruled in that case that the state’s current districts dilute Black voting strength in violation of Section 2 of the VRA.

A Black state Supreme Court justice has never been elected to the Mississippi Supreme Court. The four Black justices who have served – Reuben V. Anderson, Fred L. Banks Jr., James E. Graves Jr., and current Presiding Justice Leslie D. King – have all been gubernatorial appointees.

Judge Aycock ordered the Mississippi Legislature to redraw the districts, but lawmakers declined to act while the Callais case was under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals eventually paused the case on that basis.

Aycock is under no requirement to consider the governor’s special session call as she moves forward in the case after lawmakers failed to act. But the call provides the legislative leadership with a measure of political cover as both the Louisiana and Mississippi cases move forward.