Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to sharply curtail the federal Voting Rights Act by limiting who can sue to enforce protection against racial discrimination at the ballot box. 

The Mississippi appeal could have significant repercussions nationwide and for the federal law that stems from the Civil Rights era. If the nation’s highest court rules in Fitch’s favor, it would mean civil rights groups could no longer bring a suit on behalf of citizens.

“This direct appeal presents an important legal question that has divided the courts of appeals: whether private parties may sue to enforce section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” Fitch’s office writes. “The answer is no.” 

The AG’s office declined to comment on why it filed the appeal, which stems from a lawsuit brought by the Mississippi branch of the NAACP over the state’s legislative districts. The litigation resulted in a federal three-judge panel ruling last year that Mississippi’s legislative districts diluted Black-voting strength in three areas of the state.    

The panel, comprised of all George W. Bush-appointed judges, ordered lawmakers to redraw its districts to give Black voters in three areas of the state a fairer shot at electing candidates of their choice. Special elections for these races are currently ongoing, with the general election scheduled to happen in November. 

Ari Savitzky is a senior attorney with the ACLU voting rights project, and he is one of the attorneys who represented the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. He told Mississippi Today that the plaintiffs will oppose the state’s request. 

“What the Mississippi defendants and the GOP are asking is to overturn 60 years of law and history,” Savitzky said. 

The appeal procedure for redistricting cases is different from normal lawsuits. A member of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals sat on the initial three-judge panel, so the state’s appeal will not go to the appellate circuit court. 

Instead, the appeal goes directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it must address it in some capacity. The court can ask for additional briefings, oral argument or summarily dismiss it outright. 

If the court does rule in Mississippi’s favor, it would mean only the Department of Justice, under the control of a presidential administration, could sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act. 

Mississippi’s appeal follows a similar case pending before the court. 

Several appellate circuits, including the 5th Circuit, have ruled that private citizens do have a right to sue under the federal act. But the 8th Circuit in 2023 and 2025 said that only the government, not voters and other private parties, can sue to enforce the provision, meaning circuits have been split on the issue.

The Supreme Court paused the 8th Circuit’s ruling in July, but it may agree to hear an appeal in the coming months since three members of the court — Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch — dissented.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, Mississippi’s lone Democrat in Washington and someone who has used the courts to enforce civil rights laws, decried the state’s attempt to gut part of the federal law. 

“I’ve been elected all of my adult life, and in every instance, it was through legislation in the Voting Rights Act that created that opportunity,” Thompson told Mississippi Today. “To now try to deny citizens their day in court is the complete opposite of the intent of the Voting Rights Act.”