State Watch

Mississippi governor calling for special session over state Supreme Court map after VRA decision

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by Sarah Davis - 04/24/26 9:50 PM ET

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by Sarah Davis - 04/24/26 9:50 PM ET

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Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) announced on Friday that he will call a special session to consider new voting maps after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a landmark redistricting case.

Reeves said state legislators will return to Jackson, Miss., 21 days to redraw electoral maps after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on Louisiana v. Callais.

“It is my belief and federal law requires that the Mississippi Legislature be given the first opportunity to draw these maps,” Reeves wrote in a post on the social platform X. “And the fact is, they haven’t had a fair opportunity to do that because of the pending Callais decision.”

The high court will determine whether race-based redistricting under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) is in compliance with constitutional equality protections.

The provision prohibits voting practices that discriminate based on race, color or minority-group membership.

The case centers around a second majority-Black congressional map begrudgingly adopted by the GOP-controlled Louisiana legislature after the original maps were challenged under the VRA. The state is arguing that this new map effectively amounts to racial gerrymandering.

The result in Louisiana v. Callais could have significant impacts for Mississippi’s proposed new maps for its three state Supreme Court districts, which are currently stayed in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals pending the decision in the Louisiana case.

Mississippi is defending its proposed map after a U.S. District Court sided with a complaint that the new lines violated the VRA because it dilutes the voting strength of Black voters in these districts.

Reeves expressed his hope that the Supreme Court sides with Louisiana in the case.

“It is my 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 governor said.

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