Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves says his state may soon revisit congressional, legislative, and judicial district maps following a major Supreme Court ruling that struck down race-based redistricting practices — a decision conservatives are celebrating as a major constitutional victory.
In an exclusive interview Wednesday, Reeves said Mississippi lawmakers are already preparing for a possible special session tied to state Supreme Court redistricting, but he made clear the discussion could quickly expand into broader political map changes across the state.
“In Mississippi, it’s a little bit more complicated,” Reeves explained, noting the state is currently battling multiple Voting Rights Act lawsuits at the same time.
The political earthquake came after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which found Louisiana’s congressional map amounted to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. The decision immediately sent shockwaves across Southern states where majority-minority districts have long been defended under the Voting Rights Act.
Reeves said Mississippi now faces three separate redistricting fronts: Supreme Court districts, congressional districts, and state legislative districts.
The most immediate issue involves Mississippi’s Supreme Court map after a federal judge ruled last year that the state’s judicial districts violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Reeves said he had already been preparing for a special legislative session to address that issue if courts forced changes.
But the governor also emphasized he has constitutional authority to expand that session to include other redistricting matters — including congressional maps.
That could place Mississippi’s current majority-minority congressional district under renewed scrutiny. The district is currently represented by Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson.
“We know that Mississippi’s majority-minority district was drawn race consciously,” Reeves said.
He added that he expects the Mississippi Legislature “will reevaluate” the state’s congressional map “at the earliest opportunity.”
Still, Reeves noted no final decisions have been made and acknowledged the timing is complicated because Mississippi has already held party primaries for the 2026 election cycle. Unlike some other Republican-led states, Mississippi may face legal and logistical questions about whether any new maps could take effect in 2026 or would need to wait until 2028.
Throughout the interview, Reeves framed the Supreme Court ruling as a long-overdue correction to decades of what he described as politically motivated litigation under the Voting Rights Act.
“When the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, we were in a very different time in our country,” Reeves said, arguing that activist organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP, and the Southern Poverty Law Center have spent decades using the law to strengthen Democratic political power in the South.
Asked directly whether he believed racial voting-rights arguments were being used primarily to create more Democratic districts, Reeves answered bluntly: “100%.”
He argued that Mississippi’s existing Supreme Court districts have already produced diverse elected officials and pushed back against claims that black voters lack representation under the current maps.
At the same time, Reeves acknowledged that multiple state legislative districts could also face review following the Supreme Court’s ruling. Previous Voting Rights Act challenges had already forced special elections for certain Mississippi House and Senate seats under the older legal framework.
Now, with the legal landscape shifting dramatically after Callais, Reeves suggested many of those earlier assumptions may no longer hold up in court.
For conservatives, the ruling is being viewed as a major win for equal treatment under the law and a rebuke of race-centered district drawing that critics say divided Americans for political gain.
“That is why Callais was so important,” Reeves said, “because it reaffirms what we’ve known all along, which is that all Americans, regardless of race, are equal.”
As redistricting battles intensify across the country, Mississippi may now become one of the biggest testing grounds for how Republican-led states redraw political lines in the post-Callais era.