US Supreme Court must answer key questions after its Callais redistricting decision ...Middle East

Some folks believe the recent U.S. Supreme Court redistricting decision in Louisiana v. Callais gives elected officials the authority to discriminate against Black people – to draw political districts with the express purpose of preventing them from being in the majority.

In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves and state Auditor Shad White and other Republicans seem to be of that belief. They advocate, but disagree on timing, redrawing the 2nd Congressional District currently represented by Democrat Bennie Thompson, who is only the second Black Mississippian to serve in the U.S. House since the 1800s, to ensure it is not a majority-Black district.

Court decisions can be difficult to comprehend. Often, attorneys are needed to make sense of the rulings, and if five attorneys look at the same decision, they might all come to nuanced, different interpretations.

Some would argue such vagueness keeps members of the legal profession employed. 

Despite all the pontification and analysis of the landmark Callais redistricting decision, there seems to remain one central question that the high court needs to answer.

Is it OK for elected leaders to draw political districts – congressional, state legislative or local city and county districts – with the intent of preventing majority-Black districts?

Weakening the Voting Rights Act

For decades, the 1965 Voting Rights Act has been used by the courts to prevent the dilution of Black voter strength and to ensure majority-minority districts under certain circumstances. Those circumstances included, for instance, could a majority-minority district be drawn that was reasonably compact without dividing communities of interest, such as cities and counties.

In weakening the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court seemed to say in the Callais decision that districts could not be drawn for the sole purpose of creating majority-Black districts.

But on the flip side, can districts be drawn with the sole intent of preventing majority-Black districts from being created?

Reeves, White and others are arguing that even though Mississippi’s population is nearly 40% Black, it is OK for districts to be drawn to prevent one of four congressional districts from being majority-Black.

Is that a bridge too far even for the conservative U.S. Supreme Court?

Should there be some type of proportional representation awarded to large minority populations, such as Black people in the South or Hispanics in Texas, California and multiple other states?

The courts have long said that districts did not have to be proportional, such as one-fourth of the districts being majority-Black if 25% of the state was Black. But should proportionality be totally ignored?

Perhaps that question will be answered when the Supreme Court addresses a redistricting effort in Alabama.

Despite the Callais decision, a three-judge federal panel, including two appointees of President Donald Trump, recently rejected a redistricting plan developed by the Alabama Legislature saying it was “tainted by intentional race-based discrimination.”

The rejected plan in Alabama had reduced that state’s number of majority-Black districts from two to one. The Black population in Alabama is 30%, and the state has seven congressional districts. Some would argue that there is a natural, compact area in the state where another district that’s majority-Black or close to it could be created.

Communities of interest are divided

Perhaps the most obvious effort since the Callais decision to draw districts with the sole intent of preventing a majority-Black district occurred in Tennessee. The Tennessee Legislature worked overtime  to divide Memphis, one of the Blackest big cities in the country, into three congressional districts.

Memphis was previously incorporated into a small compact congressional district in southwest Tennessee. Now, one of the districts incorporating Memphis runs along the southern border of Tennessee for about 200 miles before jutting north to pick up parts of suburban Nashville, while another runs north along the western Tennessee border before turning eastward for about 200 miles. In the middle of those two long and winding districts is the third district that includes Memphians. 

The question is simple. Is it OK to gerrymander to ensure Black people do not have districts where they are the majority population? Is it legal and constitutional? And is it moral?

At one point, politicians across the aisle believed creating such majority-minority districts was the right thing to do. Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress voted on multiple occasions to renew the Voting Rights Act and even to strengthen it to ensure minorities could have a chance to elect representatives of their choice.

Perhaps the Supreme Court might want to reevaluate the Callais decision or at least answer an important question.

Hence then, the article about us supreme court must answer key questions after its callais redistricting decision was published today ( Sunday 31/05/2026 - 02:03 PM ) and is available on Mississippi Today ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.

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