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MISSISSIPPI’S LEGISLATIVE MAPS DISCRIMINATE AGAINST BLACK VOTERS,
FEDERAL COURT RULES  
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Rachel Selzer
July 3, 2024
Democracy Docket
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_ “[T]he court rightly held that the Mississippi Legislature used
the redistricting process to dilute the power of Black voters. Those
legislative districts denied Black Mississippians an equal voice in
state government.” _

Mississippi State Capitol Building (Chuck Kelly/Flickr),

 

A federal three-judge panel on Tuesday struck down
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Republican-drawn legislative maps, finding that certain districts
discriminate against Black voters in violation of the Voting Rights
Act (VRA). 

According to the court’s 119-page order, the Mississippi Legislature
will now have an opportunity to redraw the three districts, after
which special elections will be held in those districts. 

In yesterday’s unanimous ruling, a panel of George W. Bush-appointed
judges sided with the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP and
Black voters, who alleged in a 2022 lawsuit
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the state Senate and House maps unlawfully dilute Black voting
strength.

At a trial held in February, the plaintiffs argued that
Mississippi’s 38% Black population — which is the highest
percentage of any state in the country — could support at least four
additional majority-Black Senate districts and at least three
additional majority-Black House districts under the VRA.  

The panel yesterday agreed in part, finding that three additional
majority-Black districts proposed by the plaintiffs could be drawn
under Section 2 of the VRA, which protects against racially
discriminatory redistricting plans.

In particular, the court held that two more majority-Black Senate
districts could be constructed in northern Mississippi around DeSoto
County and in the southeastern area of the state around the city of
Hattiesburg, while an additional Section 2-compliant House District
could be drawn in the northeastern counties of Chickasaw and Monroe.

“Of importance…is that the 2022 Enacted Plans contained the same
number of majority-minority districts as the previously enacted plans
despite the admitted black-population growth and white-population
decline,” the opinion states.

The judges also rejected an argument
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by state GOP officials and the Mississippi Republican Party that
private individuals cannot sue under Section 2 of the VRA. In refuting
the defendants’ suggestion that Section 2 lacks a private right of
action, the panel pointed to a recent
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U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that reaffirmed private
enforcement of the statute in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

The panel concluded that it would be a “momentous change” for a
court “to hold after almost 60 years, that [Section 2] cases filed
by private individuals were never properly brought,” but
acknowledged that the U.S. Supreme Court has never formally resolved
the matter. 

Just last week, the Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP opted out
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asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on an 8th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals decision that foreclosed private enforcement of Section 2 in
seven states. Accordingly, a so-called “circuit split” remains
over the issue, with some federal appeals courts — in contrast to
the 8th Circuit — explicitly allowing for private enforcement under
Section 2.

Aside from bringing VRA claims, Black voters in the Mississippi case
also maintained that the legislative districts drawn after the 2020
census were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders, but the panel found
that the plaintiffs did not meet the high burden to prove that race
predominated the state’s redistricting process. 

The court will hold a hearing the week of July 8 to discuss the next
steps in the process for the state to remedy its VRA violation. “It
is the desire of this court to have new legislators elected before the
2025 legislative session convenes, but the parties can make whatever
arguments about timing they conclude are valid,” the opinion
reads. 

The panel noted that if the Legislature fails to meet an eventual
deadline for submitting a new set of maps, the parties should be
prepared to submit their own map proposals to the court for review.
State officials have not yet indicated whether they will appeal the
ruling. 

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in _Allen v. Milligan_
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which preserved Section 2 of the VRA, federal courts have struck down
legislative maps in Georgia
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Dakota
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discriminating against minority voters. 

In response to the yesterday’s ruling, Jarvis Dortch, executive
director of the ACLU of Mississippi, said
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“[t]he court rightly held that the Mississippi Legislature used the
redistricting process to dilute the power of Black voters. Those
legislative districts denied Black Mississippians an equal voice in
state government.”

Ari Savitzky, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights
Project, called
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ruling “a win for Black Mississippians,” adding that “[t]he 2022
maps illegally prevented Black Mississippians from fully and fairly
participating in our democracy in places like DeSoto County,
Hattiesburg, and Chickasaw County. The court correctly found that the
Voting Rights Act demands more.”

_As a senior case coordinator at Democracy Docket, Rachel Selzer
tracks and reports on a wide range of voting rights and
election-related litigation. Originally from Connecticut, Rachel
graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, where she
participated in her university’s voter registration organization and
served as a poll worker. In her free time, Rachel enjoys long-distance
running and exploring local landmarks and museums._

_Democracy Docket is the leading digital news platform dedicated to
information, analysis and opinion about voting rights and elections in
the courts.  Founded in 2020, Democracy Docket is a reliable source
of news that delivers detailed analysis and expert commentary on
voting rights and election litigation and policy that will shape our
elections and democratic institutions for years to come._

* voting rights
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* Gerrymandering
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* racial discrimination
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* Mississippi
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