{"id":45380,"date":"2026-08-14T23:20:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T18:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45380"},"modified":"2026-08-14T23:20:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T18:20:27","slug":"federal-judge-denies-attempt-to-strike-down-mississippi-countys-majority-black-judicial-districts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45380","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge denies attempt to strike down Mississippi county\u2019s majority-Black judicial districts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">A federal judge, at least for now, has denied a request to prevent a majority-Black section of voters from electing new county judges months before the election begins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by Robert Foster, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate and current DeSoto County supervisor, and others who claim the Legislature\u2019s creation of majority-Black subdistricts for the state judiciary violates the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/mississippitoday.org\/2026\/04\/29\/callais-supreme-court-mississippi\/\">Voting Rights Act<\/a>. The lawsuit came after the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s May <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/mississippitoday.org\/2026\/04\/29\/voting-rights-supreme-court-mississippi\/\">Louisiana v. Callais decision<\/a> rolled back protections for minority voters during redistricting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock ruled on Thursday that a court order changing the district lines for an upcoming state judicial race would fall too close to the November election date, something the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled lower courts should not do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cThe Plaintiffs have not provided sufficient evidence to justify this Court\u2019s involvement,\u201d Aycock wrote. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Foster and other DeSoto County residents filed a lawsuit last month, arguing that when the Legislature redrew the state\u2019s court districts, it gave DeSoto County an additional circuit judge and an additional chancery judge. But those judges had to be elected from a majority-Black subdistrict. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">A subdistrict is used to elect a judge from a smaller area within the main district, but the judge can still hear cases from anywhere in the district. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The lawsuit was filed against the three-member State Board of Election Commissioners, which is composed of Gov. Tate Reeves, Secretary of State Michael Watson and Attorney General Lynn Fitch, all Republican statewide officials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Attorneys for the DeSoto County residents did not respond to a request for comment. MaryAsa Lee, a spokesperson for Fitch\u2019s office, declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Even though Aycock denied the plaintiff\u2019s request to prevent the subdistricts from going into effect, the litigation can still proceed. Aycock can order the parties to submit new briefs and evidence, after which she can issue a ruling on the full case. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">This story was originally published by <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/mississippitoday.org\/\">Mississippi Today<\/a> and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal judge, at least for now, has denied a request to prevent a majority-Black section of voters from electing new county judges months before the election begins. The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by Robert Foster, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate and current DeSoto County supervisor, and others who claim the Legislature\u2019s creation&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.abcnews.com\/images\/US\/abc_news_default_2000x2000_update_16x9_992.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}