Mississippi
How did US Supreme Court decisions this year impact Mississippi?
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The U.S. Supreme Court concluded its session at the end of June after making one of the most impactful decisions in recent history.
Each Supreme Court term begins on the first Monday in October and technically runs for an entire year, but the justices typically finish their sessions through late June or early July. As of June 30, the court had issued opinions in 68 cases.
Mississippi falls within the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the third largest circuit by population but contributed the most cases to the court’s docket this session. Justices heard 11 cases from Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
The Supreme Court handed down more than five dozen decisions, some specific to particular legal situations and others with ramifications spanning across the country.
The future of redistricting
Louisiana v. Callais
The biggest decision to come out of the 2025 term was the landmark ruling on redistricting. In a 6-3 decision spearheaded by the court’s conservative faction, justices ruled that drawing voting districts based solely on race was unconstitutional.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his opinion that the Voting Rights Act, devised in 1965 to protect the civil rights of minorities in elections, forced states at times to “engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”
Prior to the ruling, states frequently drew majority-minority districts by choice or judicial mandate to ensure that their largest minorities had a fair say in government. In Mississippi, as with many other southern states, the Voting Rights Act was utilized to guarantee majority-Black districts that would consistently elect their choice of candidate.
Alito and the justices that concurred with him wrote that “allowing race to play any part in government decision making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context.” The Louisiana congressional map that prompted the case was an unconstitutional gerrymander, the court ruled, and race is no longer allowed to be evaluated when redistricting.
The case originated in Louisiana, but it has consequences in neighboring Mississippi, where federal judges have ordered the legislature to add or protect majority-Black voting districts as recently as 2025. The Supreme Court decision triggered a domino chain of redistricting efforts in many states, including Republican-led ones in the south.
Mississippi has not yet reconfigured its voting districts in Congress, the state legislature and beyond, but Gov. Tate Reeves has indicated that lawmakers will almost certainly begin the process in a special session before the end of the year. When they do so, it will largely be without the civil rights protections that shaped the state’s voting landscape for more than 60 years.
Mail-in ballot timing
Watson v. Republican National Committee
The Supreme Court is not a partisan body, but it is just as ideologically divided as Congress or a state legislature may be. That’s why opinions shared by justices across the spectrum of philosophies, such as the 5-4 ruling in the Watson case, can come as a surprise.
Watson in this case refers to Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, who was sued in 2024 by state and national Republican officials over Mississippi’s absentee ballot policy. The state is one of about 30 nationwide that counts ballots mailed by election day but received afterward.
The argument from the plaintiffs was that “election” means both the ballot casting and its reception, and federal statutes set the deadline for both on the day of the elections itself. The Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that an “election” is its result rather than its process.
The court also ruled that federal law dictates when ballots are cast, but state law governs the deadline for their receipt. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett clarified in her opinion that the court was ruling on the narrow issue of ballot counting rather than big-picture questions surrounding early and absentee voting.
The court’s decision means that Mississippi can keep counting mail-in ballots received up to five days after election day.
Campaign spending limits no more
National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC
One of the court’s last decisions in the term tackled longstanding limits on campaign spending. The suit was initiated in 2022 by then-Senate candidate JD Vance and two national Republican groups challenging restrictions on the amount political parties can spend on their federal candidates.
The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 capped coordinated expenditure amounts, the funds spent by a political party campaigning in consultation with a federal candidate.
The 2026 limit was $65,300 per House candidate in states with multiple representatives and $130,600 for states with a single representative. Senate nominee limits ranged between $130,600 and $4,071,800, based on the state’s voting age population.
Vance and the groups challenged the existing laws, which were affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2001, on the basis that they violated free-speech provisions. The six conservative justices ruled that the restrictions are not “narrowly tailored” and unnecessary to stop corruption, given the slew of other federal laws governing campaign finance.
Bea Anhuci is the state government reporter for the Clarion Ledger. She has covered Mississippi politics since the start of 2026. Email her at banhuci@usatodayco.com.
Americans largely support government involvement in healthcare
Do Americans support government intervention and funding for health care? Dr. Steven Kull says his organization has found overwhelming support for just that.
WASHINGTON – The federal government will issue $500 refunds to nearly a million Americans for Obamacare overcharges, the White House said on Thursday.
Checks will be sent to eligible Americans starting October. President Donald Trump has also proposed to pay every U.S. adult a $5,000 “Trump dividend” if his party wins the November congressional elections, at a time when opinion polls show his popularity at an all-time low with broad majorities dissatisfied with the Iran war and the U.S. economy.
Obamacare plans, created by former President Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act, are subsidized based on income.
The White House said the Biden Administration overcharged Americans through Obamacare plan exchange “user fees” that were passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums.
“In many cases, these refunds will cover the entire spike in your insurance caused by Democrats, who solely work to protect big insurance companies,” Trump said in a video posted by the White House on social media platform X.
“Our administration is doing the right thing and giving the money back to the people who were wrongly ripped off.”
The refunds would go to consumers in 30 states who do not receive premium subsidies and purchased coverage through the federal marketplace, called Healthcare.gov, where people sign up for the plans.
These states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Healthcare costs have increased for the subsidized plans after Congress allowed COVID-19-era tax credits to expire.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the Affordable Care Act.
The administration has previously proposed new Obamacare rules for 2027, allowing insurers to offer new kinds of long-term catastrophic policies, plans with low premiums but significantly higher out-of-pocket costs that would be used to cover major medical expenses.
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