Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann is urging the state’s Board of Election Commissioners to try to halt a federal judge’s order that could force special elections for Mississippi Supreme Court seats.
Last week, Judge Sharion Aycock for the Northern District of Mississippi issued a ruling requiring the state legislature to redraw the current Supreme Court electoral map, which was established in 1987, arguing that Black voting power had been diluted. Aycock’s ruling put the GOP-led legislature on the clock, giving it until the end of the 2026 session to redraw the lines. The session is scheduled to begin on Jan. 6 and go through April 5.
The portion of the Voting Rights Act that Aycock used as the basis for her ruling, Section 2, is currently being contested at the U.S. Supreme Court level. Aycock further added that she would determine which Mississippi Supreme Court seats would be up for election after the map is redrawn and that she would work to meet any deadlines that would allow for special elections to take place next November.
In the meantime, Hosemann is calling on Gov. Tate Reeves, Attorney General Lynn Fitch, and Secretary of State Michael Watson — the Republicans who make up the Board of Election Commissioners — to challenge Aycock’s ruling as quickly as possible. In a letter sent to his Republican counterparts, Hosemann called the ruling “unconstitutional”
The lieutenant governor’s request comes after a federal judicial panel ordered state lawmakers to redraw the lines of multiple legislative seats in 2024, contending that Black voters were being drowned out in elections. The result of the newly-drawn districts yielded a slew of wins by Democrats, breaking up the Republican supermajority in the state Senate.
“Previously, this Board did not request a stay of a similar order to redistrict the Senate and the House districts, allowing the Senate and the House to effectively be redrawn by unconstitutional federal mandates on issues currently before the U.S. Supreme Court brought by other states,” Hosemann wrote. “But here we are again.”
Aycock’s ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in 2022, in which a group of Black candidates argued they faced disadvantages in being elected to the Mississippi Supreme Court. Mississippi, a state whose population is nearly 40% Black, has only had four Black Supreme Court justices in its history, and each justice was initially appointed to the position in the interim by a sitting governor. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit specifically challenged two seats in Mississippi’s central district, currently held by Justices Kenny Griffis and Jenifer Branning, where a Black candidate has never won an election.
Hosemann, on the other hand, believes that redrawing the central district’s lines could have a domino effect and potentially impact additional spots on the nine-seat Supreme Court along with elections of public service and transportation commissioners.
“Altering the Central District will affect more than the two Supreme Court seats the Plaintiffs targeted,” Hosemann continued. “Such elections would not apply solely to electing a majority or possibly an entire Supreme Court but also to electing an entire Public Service Commission and the entire Commission for the Mississippi Department of Transportation, which are also the same districts.”
At this time, the Board of Election Commissioners has not taken any action in this case.
