Lawmakers have not unveiled a new map of Mississippi Supreme Court districts, but they still could before the adjournment of their 2026 session.
The House and Senate have advanced so-called “dummy bills,” which are empty placeholder bills that meet legislative deadlines, but would not actually change state law without more work. These bills allow lawmakers to keep studying an issue and propose changes.
The reason lawmakers are considering changing the Supreme Court districts is because U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock ruled last year that the districts violated the Voting Rights Act because one of the districts dilutes Black voting strength. She later ruled that the Legislature should be granted the opportunity to redraw the districts to comply with federal law.
The two top legislators who will lead negotiations over redrawing the districts are House Judiciary B Chairman Kevin Horan, a Republican from Grenada, and Senate Judiciary A Chairman Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula.
Both lawmakers told Mississippi Today they intend to comply with the order, but Horan said the Legislature should consider all options because the U.S. Supreme Court could upend redistricting in the coming weeks.
The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering a case, Louisiana v. Callais, that deals with congressional districts, but the ruling could apply to Mississippi’s judicial districts. The central question in the case is whether factoring race into the drawing of congressional districts violates the U.S. Constitution.
A majority of the justices at the nation’s highest court signaled they were open to rolling back the federal Voting Rights Act, a Civil Rights era federal law that helps prevent discrimination whenever legislative bodies draw districts.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Mississippi, the Southern Poverty Law Center and private law firms on behalf of a group of Black Mississippians filed a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act against the state over the Supreme Court districts.
Judge Aycock in Mississippi ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but the state defendants appealed her ruling to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Even though the state appealed, it did not ask Aycock to pause lower-court proceedings while the appeal played out.
The Fifth Circuit, however, did pause its appellate proceedings until the U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in the Louisiana case.
If Mississippi lawmakers redraw the Mississippi Supreme Court districts, it would be the first time lawmakers have redrawn them since 1987.
Current state law establishes three distinct Supreme Court districts, commonly referred to as the Northern, Central and Southern districts. Voters elect three judges from each of these districts to make up the nine-member court.
The main district at issue in the case is the Central District, which comprises many parts of the majority-Black Delta and the majority-Black Jackson Metro area. Currently, two white justices, Kenny Griffis and Jenifer Branning, and one Black justice, Leslie King, represent the district.
Last year, Branning, a white candidate who described herself as a “constitutional conservative” and was backed by the Republican Party, defeated longtime Justice Jim Kitchens, who is white but was widely viewed as a candidate supported by Black voters.
No Black person has ever been elected to the Mississippi Supreme Court, in the state with the highest percentage of Black residents, without first obtaining an interim appointment from the governor, and no Black person from either of the two other districts has ever served on the state’s high court.
