“It is a decision that could (and in my view should) forever change the way we draw electoral maps,” Reeves posted to X on April 24. “It is my belief and federal law requires that the Mississippi Legislature be given the first opportunity to draw these maps. And the fact is, they haven’t had a fair opportunity to do that because of the pending Callais decision.”
When the Supreme Court ultimately struck down a majority-Black district in Louisiana on April 29, Reeves ordered lawmakers to return to the Capitol to resume redrawing the maps on May 20, per Mississippi Today.
“First Dobbs. Now Callais. Just Mississippi and Louisiana down here saving our country!” Reeves posted on X on April 29.
President Donald Trump also urged Mississippi lawmakers on Saturday (May 2) to redraw the state’s four Congressional districts in a manner that erases Mississippi’s only Democratic District, represented by Rep. Bennie Thompson, per the outlet.
Thompson won the district in the March primary, which includes much of the majority-Black Jackson area. Mississippi has the highest Black population of any state, at around 38%, according to the latest U.S. Census.
Because the Capitol building is undergoing renovations, Reeves reportedly ordered lawmakers to hold the special session in the Old Capitol building, a move that has Black lawmakers worried.
According to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, lawmakers met in the Old Capitol building from 1839 to 1903, when the new Capitol was constructed.
It was there that legislators voted to secede from the Union in 1861 during the Civil War. Although the building is where the first Black lawmakers in the nation’s history were elected to serve in the U.S. Senate, it is also where delegates crafted the 1890 Mississippi State Constitution that stripped voting rights from Black citizens and imposed Jim Crow laws across the state.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally removed those provisions.
“It’s a slap in the face to the 1.2 million African Americans in this state to be meeting in the place that established the 1890 Constitution that disenfranchised African Americans,” Rep. Kabir Karriem, leader of the Legislative Black Caucus, told the outlet on Tuesday (May 5).
Some lawmakers, however, believe there is no ill intent in moving the session to the Old Capitol, as the House’s 122 members have limited options to convene elsewhere.
“We didn’t get elected to debate locations,” Rep. John Hines of the House Management Committee told the outlet on Tuesday. “We got elected to make sure we take care of the rights of people. I’m more concerned about protecting the rights of historically marginalized people.”
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