Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves announced on April 24, 2026, that he will call the state legislature into a special session to redraw the three judicial districts used for electing Mississippi Supreme Court justices.
This session will convene 21 calendar days after the U.S. Supreme Court issues its decision in the case of Louisiana v. Callais, which could have significant implications for the Voting Rights Act and race-based congressional districts.
“During the recently completed regular session, the Legislature discussed drawing new maps to comply with a decision from a federal judge from the Northern District of Mississippi – a decision that has been appealed to the 5th Circuit and the appeal has been heretofore stayed pending future U.S. Supreme Court decisions,” Reeves declared in a social media post.
“The entire world knows the Callais decision has not yet been handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is a decision that could (and in my view should) forever change the way we draw electoral maps. It is my belief and federal law requires that the Mississippi Legislature be given the first opportunity to draw these maps. And the fact is, they haven’t had a fair opportunity to do that because of the pending Callais decision,” the governor continued.
“For those reasons, I am using my constitutional authority to allow the Mississippi Legislature to use its constitutionally recognized right to draw these maps once the new rules of the game are known following Callais. 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 based on 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,” he continued.
“The special session will take place on the calendar day that falls 21 days after the U.S. Supreme Court issues the Callais decision,” he added.
The special session proclamation concerns a federal court order requiring changes to Mississippi’s Supreme Court districts, which have not been redrawn since 1987.
Under current law, the state is divided into three judicial districts—Northern, Central, and Southern—from which voters elect three justices each to the nine-member Supreme Court of Mississippi.
In 2025, U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock ruled that the existing map, particularly the Central District covering majority-black areas of the Delta and the Jackson metropolitan region, violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by diluting the ability of Black voters to elect candidates of their choice.
The ruling followed a lawsuit filed in 2022 by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Mississippi, the Southern Poverty Law Center – which is under indictment on federal charges including wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, and private attorneys.
The state appealed the decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has paused proceedings while awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais.
This case examines whether the creation of a second majority-black congressional district in Louisiana, to comply with the Voting Rights Act, constitutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the 14th and 15th Amendments.
Last week, a former official from President Donald Trump’s first term said he was informed by reliable sources that the U.S. Supreme Court had decided a case the case in a way that would dramatically alter congressional maps throughout the South in a way that heavily benefits Republicans.
Sean Spicer, who served as Trump’s first press secretary, said on “The Huddle” podcast that the opinion is finished, but justices in the minority are “slow-walking” their dissents so that states cannot redistrict ahead of the 2026 midterms, suggesting Section 2 of the VRA is set to be overturned.