When Johnny DuPree won his Mississippi Senate seat in November 2025, it marked the first time that Hattiesburg residents would have a Black senator representing them in Jackson, even though 51% of the city’s population is Black. For decades, only white Republicans had represented the Hub City’s residents in the upper chamber of the state legislature, with the city long carved out into multiple majority-white districts.

That only changed after a federal court ordered the state to redraw its state legislative districts to create more Black-majority state House and Senate districts across the state. The resulting election in November 2025 ended the Republican supermajority in the state Senate. But on Monday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that ruling after an appeal.

The Republican-appointed U.S. Supreme Court majority did not explain why it issued the ruling other than saying it was a result of its April 29 Louisiana v. Callais decision, which largely neutralized Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a law that has long ensured southern states couldn’t lock Black voters out of representation. The court ruled in that case that Louisiana relied too heavily on race when it created the state’s second majority-Black district.

None of the concurring justices offered commentary to give further explanation. Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson was the sole dissenting voice who said she disagreed with the ruling because the Mississippi case deals with “the question of Section 2’s private enforceability,” which the Louisiana ruling “did not address.”

“Thus I see no basis for vacating the lower court’s judgment,” she wrote.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks to the 2025 Supreme Court Fellows Program on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025, at the Library of Congress in Washington. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool

The U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case, originally brought forth by a group of Mississippi voters along with the NAACP, back to the U.S. District for the Southern District of Mississippi for further arguments. The lower federal court will now consider arguments as to whether private individuals may sue to enforce Section 2.

Gov. Tate Reeves celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision on social media, saying it was “another good day for Mississippi and America!” He said the State was taking “thoughtful consideration” regarding legislative, congressional and state Supreme Court redistricting and that redrawing the maps may require further “clarity” from the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has again recognized that race may not be considered in drawing legislative maps. They also remanded this case back to the original three-judge panel—an opinion that we believe ultimately results in the 2022 legislative maps being reinstated,” the governor wrote in a Monday social media post. “This opinion and decision is another win for the principle that all Americans are created equal. In Mississippi, we have much more work to do to get our maps fully fixed (in all three areas mentioned above) after years of unconstitutional requirements placed on the state by the lower courts.”

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves speaks at a press conference in Ridgeland, Miss., on April 9, 2026. MFP Photo by Rogelio V. Solis

The Mississippi Legislature had to redraw its House and Senate district maps to include more majority-Black districts after a federal court ruled in 2024 that the districts did not offer Black voters equal participation in the political process. The court ruled that the Legislature needs to create more majority-Black districts around DeSoto County in North Mississippi and the City of Hattiesburg in South Mississippi.

The new maps resulted in a special election last November in which Democrats flipped a House seat and flipped two Senate seats, breaking the Republican Senate supermajority. With the new maps, Black lawmakers hold 29% of Mississippi Senate seats and 34% of Mississippi House seats; Black Mississippians make up 38% of the state’s population.

Gov. Tate Reeves, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson make up the Mississippi Board of Election Commissioners, which wrote the Mississippi Senate District plan and served as defendants in the lawsuit. They had to redraw the Senate map because the three-judge panel rejected the Legislature’s proposed redistricting plans for the Senate on April 15, 2025. The panel approved the Mississippi House’s redistricting proposal.

The panel included federal judges Sul Ozerden and Daniel Jordan of the Southern District of Mississippi’s Northern Division, along with U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge Leslie Southwick. Republican President George W. Bush appointed all three judges.

When creating district maps, officials used the Black voting-age population, or BVAP, to determine how many eligible Black voters reside in each part of the state.

Mississippi Sens. Rod Hickman, D-Macon, left, Michael McLendon, R-Hernando, second from left, Albert Butler, D-Port Gibson, and David Jordan, D-Greenwood, review a Senate redistricting map during debate on the floor of the Mississippi Senate, at the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., on Tuesday, March 29, 2022. AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis

The election board’s revised plan altered Senate districts 1, 2, 11, 19, 44 and 45 by changing the Black voting-age population percentages—the amount of Black voters in the districts. Senate District 2 is the new majority-minority district in north Mississippi, joining Senate District 11, which was already a majority-minority district.

In a Monday statement to the Mississippi Free Press, Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson said he is “pleased to see the continued application of the Callais case, which will lead to a more constitutional approach to redistricting.”

The Legislature’s redistricting plan for the Mississippi House gained approval from the three-judge panel. It altered House districts 16, 22, 36, 39, and 41.

Gov. Reeves canceled the Legislature’s special session that was meant to address redrawing the state’s Supreme Court maps following another Voting Rights Act ruling predating Callais, but has said he would like to see lawmakers address maps for judicial, legislative and congressional districts between now and 2027. He said last week that U.S. House Rep. Bennie Thompson’s “reign of terror … is over,” referring to Mississippi’s only Black or Democratic member of Congress.

The Mississippi Free Press contacted Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office for a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, but did not hear back by press time.

Wingate rejects standing challenge in Jackson ARPA lawsuit

• A federal judge ruled that a lawsuit filed by the NAACP and Jackson residents against Mississippi can proceed.
• The lawsuit alleges the state discriminated against the majority-Black city by withholding federal water infrastructure funds.
• The state argued the plaintiffs lacked legal standing and filed the lawsuit too late, but the judge affirmed their right to sue.
• Plaintiffs claim Mississippi created additional barriers for Jackson to access American Rescue Plan Act funds, worsening the 2022 water crisis.

A federal judge said the NAACP and Jackson residents suing Mississippi over withheld American Rescue Plan Act water infrastructure money have cleared the first major hurdle in their lawsuit against the state.

During a hearing Monday, May 18, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate announced he had rejected the state’s argument that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to bring the case, clearing the way for the lawsuit to continue.

The lawsuit was filed by the Jackson branch of the NAACP along with Jackson residents Doris Glasper and Nsombi Lambright. It alleges Mississippi officials discriminated against Jackson, a majority-Black city, through the way they controlled and distributed federal American Rescue Plan Act water infrastructure funding that plaintiffs argue could have helped prevent or lessen the city’s 2022 water crisis.

The hearing was a continuation of arguments first heard Thursday, May 14, where Mississippi attorneys asked Wingate to dismiss the lawsuit on several grounds, including standing, statute of limitations issues and 11th Amendment immunity claims.

But Monday, Wingate said the plaintiffs had met the legal threshold required to keep the case alive.

“This court is persuaded that this lawsuit shall go forward,” Wingate said from the bench. “This court has determined that these plaintiffs, all of them, have standing.”

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