Mississippi Governor Calls Special Legislative Session To Redraw Electoral Maps Amid Pending Supreme Court Decision

Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves will call lawmakers back to the Capitol to redraw judicial district boundaries after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a case that could reshape electoral maps nationwide.

Reeves announced Friday on X that he will convene a special legislative session 21 days after the high court delivers its opinion in Louisiana v. Callais. The case involves a challenge to Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map, which opponents contend amounts to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander over a newly created second majority-Black district, according to Fox News. During October oral arguments, the court’s conservative wing signaled willingness to curtail a section of the Voting Rights Act designed to protect minority voting strength, Fox News reported. (RELATED: SCOTUS Lets Democrats Keep Gerrymandered Maps Heading Into Midterms)

“It is my belief and federal law requires that the Mississippi Legislature be given the first opportunity to draw these maps,” Reeves wrote on X. “And the fact is, they haven’t had a fair opportunity to do that because of the pending Callais decision.” Reeves also addressed the substance of the pending case.

I don’t typically make news on a Friday afternoon, but today I am going to make an exception:

I’m calling a special session.

During the recently completed regular session, the Legislature discussed drawing new maps to comply with a decision from a federal judge from the… pic.twitter.com/wEnFw5xkHk

— Governor Tate Reeves (@tatereeves) April 24, 2026

“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 on the basis of 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 wrote.

The announcement comes after lawmakers declined to address redistricting during the regular 90-day session, which wrapped up this month, according to Magnolia Tribune. U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock ruled in late 2025 that the state’s three Supreme Court districts, unchanged since 1987, ran afoul of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center and a group of Black Mississippians filed the original challenge in 2022. Mississippi appealed, and the Fifth Circuit froze its review pending the Callais outcome. Should lawmakers again fail to act after the ruling, the court could draw new lines itself and order special elections this November, Magnolia Tribune reported.