Some Mississippi legislative districts dilute Black voting power and must be redrawn, judges say
JACKSON, Madam. — Three federal judges order Mississippi to redistribute some of its constituenciesand said the current election is undermining the power of black voters in three parts of the state.
The judges issued their order Tuesday evening in a lawsuit filed in 2022 by the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP and several black residents.
“This is an important victory for Black Mississippians to have an equal and fair opportunity to participate in the political process without having their voices diluted,” one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Jennifer Nwachukwu, of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement Wednesday. “This ruling affirms that the voices of Black Mississippians matter and should be reflected in the state legislature.”
The people of Mississippi is approximately 59% white and 38% black.
In the legislative reorganization plan adopted in 2022, 15 of 52 Senate Districts And 42 of 122 House Districts are predominantly black. That’s 29% of Senate districts and 34% of House districts.
The justices ordered lawmakers to create majority-black Senate districts in and around DeSoto County in the northwestern corner of the state and in and around Hattiesburg in the south. They also had to create a new majority-black House district in Chickasaw and Monroe Counties in the northeastern part of the state.
The order does not create additional districts. Instead, it will require lawmakers to adjust the boundaries of existing districts.
Legislative and congressional districts are updated after each census to reflect population changes over the previous decade. Mississippi’s new legislative districts were used when all of the state’s House of Representatives and Senate seats were on the ballot in 2023.
Tommie Cardin, an attorney for state officials, told federal judges in February that Mississippi cannot ignore its history of racial divisions, but that voting behavior is now determined by party preference, not race.
“The days of voter suppression and intimidation are thankfully behind us,” Cardin said.
Historical voting patterns in Mississippi show that districts with large white populations tend to lean Republican, while districts with large black populations tend to lean Democratic.
In several states, lawsuits have been filed over the composition of congressional or state government districts drawn after the 2020 census.
Louisiana legislators redrawn the six U.S. House of Representatives districts in January to two districts with a majority of black residents, instead of one, after a federal judge ruled that the state’s previous plan diluted the voting power of black residents, who make up about a third of the state’s population.
And a federal judge ruled in early February that Louisiana lawmakers diluted voting power of the black population with the House and Senate districts they redrawn in 2022.
In December, a federal judge issued new Georgia Congressional and Legislative Districts that protect Republican partisan advantages. The judge said the creation of new majority-black districts solved the illegal minority issues voice dilution which prompted him to have maps drawn again.