June 29, 2020

By Brian Gabriel
gabriel@redistrictingfoundation.org

National Redistricting Foundation Lawsuit Pushes Mississippi Legislature to Remove Jim Crow Era Law

Washington, D.C. — Today,  the Mississippi legislature passed a proposed constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters in November, will remove a racially discriminatory law designed to restrict the voting rights of African Americans. Due to pressure from a National Redistricting Foundation lawsuit filed last year, the state is finally casting out a post-Reconstruction era electoral scheme designed to maintain white control of the state government and prevent African-American voters in Mississippi from having a real voice in their representation.

“Today’s vote by the Mississippi legislature is a welcome, and overdue, step in the repealing of a discriminatory law from the Jim Crow era,” said Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States. “The National Redistricting Foundation initiated a lawsuit last year challenging these discriminatory constitutional provisions that have for too long diminished the voices of African Americans in Mississippi. As our country reviews its past, I remain hopeful that we will continue to address these unfair, painful parts of our history and set in place laws that live up to America’s founding ideals.”

Last year, the NRF coordinated the filing of a lawsuit in Mississippi alleging that certain election provisions of the Mississippi Constitution, which were adopted in 1890 for the explicit purpose of disenfranchising African Americans, violate the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. Under the resulting system, statewide officials have been elected under a sort of electoral college scheme: candidates have been required to win a majority of the popular vote, plus a majority of the state’s House districts (the “electoral vote”). If no candidate crossed both thresholds, the House would get to choose the winner. Through this case, McLemore v. Hosemann, the NRF-supported plaintiffs asked the court to stop this scheme from being used in the state’s 2019 statewide elections.

On November 1, the court issued a decision acknowledging that the electoral vote piece of this Jim Crow scheme is likely unconstitutional, remarking in response to plaintiffs’ claim that the electoral vote provision violates the doctrine of one-person/one-vote: “They’re right.” And while the challenged provisions were not triggered in the 2019 statewide elections in Mississippi, the lawsuit spurred acknowledgement by Mississippi’s legislative leaders that removal of the problematic provisions is necessary. If the proposed constitutional amendment passed today is approved by voters in November, the discriminatory electoral vote scheme will be repealed, and the state will move to a majority-vote system for statewide offices. 

The litigation team for McLemore v. Hosemann has been led by Marc E. Elias and Uzoma Nkwonta from Perkins Coie and Robert McDuff of the Mississippi Center for Justice.

The National Redistricting Foundation is the 501(c)(3) affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, and was formed in 2017 to engage in work that protects voting rights and challenges gerrymandered congressional and state legislative districts. The National Redistricting Foundation has funded and executed lawsuits that include, but are not limited to, overturning gerrymandered congressional and state legislative maps in North Carolina, successfully challenging the Trump Administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the Census, and protecting Wisconsin voters from former Governor Scott Walker’s refusal to call special elections and attacks on early voting.

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