DeSoto County residents sue, say judicial redistricting created racially divided voting process
Four DeSoto County residents sued the state and the county Board of Election Commissioners in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, asking a judge to dissolve what they call a racially divided voting process created by recent judicial redistricting, the complaint says.
The suit, filed by Robert Foster, Katie Ligon, Kirby Cater and John T. Williams, alleges lawmakers passed House Bill 1544 and Senate Bill 2768 during the 2025 legislative session to reorganize the county’s circuit and chancery courts. The complaint says an election to fill the newly created judicial seats is set for this November’s general election and the new judges would take office Jan. 1, 2027.
The complaint says the bills added a fourth circuit judge and a third chancellor but required those new posts to be elected only by voters in a “majority-minority subdistrict” made up of nine of the county’s 47 precincts, representing 22.6% of the county’s voting-age population. The plaintiffs say the new judges would have authority over the entire county while 77.4% of residents would be excluded from voting for those seats.
The suit quotes its own allegation that the law “specifically mandated” the new judges would be elected only from the nine precincts. It says residents within the subdistrict would have four votes for circuit judges and three for chancellors, while residents outside would have three votes for circuit judges and two for chancellors.
The plaintiffs allege the state created the subdistrict on the basis of race and cite remarks on the Mississippi House floor attributed in the complaint to Representative Kevin Horan: “we have created additional African American subdistricts.” The complaint reports DeSoto County’s voting-age population as 24.14% Black and 67.13% white and alleges the law “unlawfully diluted the voting power of white voters within the majority-minority subdistrict for no other reason than race.”
The complaint asks the court to set a “reasonable” deadline for the state to redraw the county’s judicial districts in a manner that is not racially divided, citing the U.S. Supreme Court decision referenced in the filing. The lawsuit names the State of Mississippi and the Board of Election Commissioners as defendants, according to the court filing.
Source: Original Article
