Federal court rules Mississippi must add new Black-majority state districts

July 3 (UPI) -- A federal court has ordered that the state of Mississippi must redraw its state Legislative districting map to include more Black-majority Senate and House districts.

In a ruling issued late Tuesday by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, the court agreed with civil rights advocates that the districting map adopted and approved by the Republican-majority state Legislature and administration two years ago violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, unlawfully diluting the electoral power of Mississippi's Black residents.

The decision , following an eight-day trial in February, calls for the districts to be redrawn with the inclusion of two additional Black-majority districts in the Senate and one additional Black-majority district in the state House.

The plaintiffs in the case -- the Mississippi State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and several individual voters -- "have satisfied their burden" in proving discrimination against Black voters, the three-judge panel wrote in their ruling.

The court determined the plaintiffs had successfully demonstrated that Mississippians' voting access was affected by "racially polarized" districts rather than political party preferences as argued by the state. It also agreed that while Black Mississippians' population grew and that of the White population declined after 2010, the 2022 redistricting maps did not reflect that change.

The jurists, however, rejected the NAACP's claims characterizing the maps as "unconstitutional racial gerrymanders."

The American Civil Liberties Union, which alongside other civil rights groups challenged the maps, hailed the decision as "a win for Black Mississippians."

The 2022 maps "illegally prevented Black Mississippians from fully and fairly participating in our democracy in places like DeSoto County, Hattiesburg, and Chickasaw County," ACLU senior staff attorney Ari Savitzky said in a statement . "The court correctly found that the Voting Rights Act demands more."

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch had not responded to the decision with a statement by late Wednesday.