Mississippi judges order legislative maps to be redrawn

A federal court has ordered Mississippi to redraw parts of its legislative map on the grounds that the current Republican-drawn one discriminates against black voters.

In a 119-page decision released Tuesday, a three-judge panel ordered the state to redraw two new black-majority Senate districts and one new black-majority House district.

The Senate districts would be drawn in and around DeSoto County in the northwest of the state and the city of Hattiesburg in the south, while the House district would be in Chickasaw and Monroe counties in the northeast.

“The court rightly held that the Mississippi Legislature used the redistricting process to dilute the power of Black voters,” Jarvis Dortch, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, said in a statement. “Those legislative districts denied Black Mississippians an equal voice in state government.”

The lawsuit, filed in 2022 by the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP and voters from across the state, alleged that the state’s legislative map did not reflect the current makeup of Mississippi’s population, which is about 38% black.

While the state’s black population increased by nearly 8,000 people since the 2010 census, the state’s non-Hispanic white population decreased by more than 83,000, according to the ruling.

“Because a black-majority district is a virtual prerequisite for black candidates’ success in Mississippi politics, it is relevant that the Mississippi Legislature left the number of majority-black districts unchanged following the recent Census, despite substantial increases in the black population and corresponding losses in the white population,” the judges wrote.

The decision comes more than two years after Mississippi lawmakers voted to approve the new redistricting plan following the 2020 census.

If the judges’ decision is not appealed and is followed through, legislators will have to hold special elections in the three redrawn districts.

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Elizabeth Jonson, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi secretary of state, said the office was in the process of reviewing the ruling.

“We will discuss with counsel soon and chart a path forward,” she said.