Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves isn’t waiting around for the left to outmaneuver him. On Friday, he announced he’s calling a special legislative session to redistrict his state ahead of the Supreme Court’s consequential ruling on the Voting Rights Act.
The case is Louisiana v. Callais, and if you haven’t been following it, you should be. The Supreme Court is deciding whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — the provision that has been used for decades to justify drawing congressional districts along racial lines — is constitutional. If the Court strikes it down, the political map of the South could be redrawn almost overnight. Analysts estimate Republicans could pick up as many as 19 new House seats across the region.
We already reported here at PJ Media that the Court has reached its decision, but liberal justices are slow-walking their dissent so that states can’t redistrict before the midterms.
I guess Reeves is calling their bluff.
“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 Northern District of Mississippi – a decision that has been appealed to the 5th Circuit and the appeal has been heretofore stayed pending future U.S. Supreme Court decisions,” Reeves wrote in a post on X. “The entire world knows the Callais decision has not yet been handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is a decision that could (and in my view should) forever change the way we draw electoral maps. 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.”
ICYMI: Only a Democrat Would Be This Shameless
He continued, “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.”
He went on to announce that he is invoking his constitutional authority to ensure the legislature can act once the legal landscape becomes clear. “For those reasons, I am using my constitutional authority to allow the Mississippi Legislature to use their constitutionally recognized right to draw these maps once the new rules of the game are known following Callais,” he said.
“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,” he continued. He added that when the government sorts citizens by 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.”
Reeves says the special session will take place 21 calendar days after the Callais decision drops.
If other Republican governors are watching — and they should be — this is the playbook.
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