While it may not be on congressional redistricting, Mississippi House Speaker Jason White is predicting Gov. Tate Reeves will call a special session to redraw the state’s legislative map before 2027.
“I do believe the governor at some point between now and then will call a special session, if nothing else than for us to address legislative redistricting,” White said Wednesday during an appearance on Mornings with Richard Cross.
Following a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that found voter maps cannot be drawn with race as a predominant factor, some Republican-led states have been racing to redraw maps to give their majority party an advantage in future elections. Some Democratic-led states have been doing the same, as well.
Mississippi has four maps that Republicans are looking to tinker with: congressional, state House and Senate, and state Supreme Court. The current version of each was drawn with race as a consideration, something White says is now “unconstitutional.”
The powers at be, for the most part, agree that congressional lines cannot be redrawn right away with the 2026 primary election already happening and the general election less than five and a half months from now. Mike Hurst, chair of the Mississippi Republican Party, said earlier this week that the party would essentially be wasting money on litigation if they tried to invalidate primary results for the sake of an immediate redraw.
But timing varies for the legislative and Supreme Court maps. While lawmakers, in theory, will have plenty of time to redraw the state’s congressional and Supreme Court maps – the next elections not being until 2028 – the legislative maps are a bit more time-sensitive with elections being held in 2027.
“We have statewide elections next year, which will include legislative [races]. So, I think it’s imperative that we get our maps in order before we return in January, because as you know, Jan. 1 is when qualifying starts and runs for the entire month of January,” White said.
Lawmakers are not scheduled to return to the capitol for a regular session until Jan. 5, 2027 – four days after the qualifying period opens when candidates can officially file for House and Senate runs.
“We need to have that settled from a legislative redistricting standpoint before we get there,” continued White, who recently created a committee focused on redistricting. His cross-chamber counterpart, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, has since created a similar committee.
Mississippi’s current legislative maps are the product of a panel of federal judges ruling that the previous maps diluted Black voting power in areas such as DeSoto County, Hattiesburg, and Chickasaw counties. The maps were redrawn during the 2025 session with special elections being held that November. Democrats capitalized on the situation, flipping one House seat and two Senate seats.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to send a case over the maps back to the lower courts for consideration.
Some could argue that a simple solution would be to return to the legislative maps drawn in 2022, but White said those maps were also drawn with race being a predominant factor.
“Those maps were drawn based on race, and what [the U.S. Supreme Court] is telling you is that the framework has been modified from this day forward to promote race-neutral criteria,” he said. “And if it’s used and considered in developing the plan, your plan is unconstitutional. That 2022 plan – the analysis was the same in 2025.”
It remains unclear if and when Reeves would call a special session to redraw the state’s legislative maps after recently canceling one to redraw the Supreme Court map. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from SuperTalk Mississippi News.
Either way, new House and Senate maps seem imminent as Reeves previously said he wants to see them reconfigured to give Republicans a further advantage in an already red state. White seconded that during Wednesday’s interview, saying, “I want as many Republicans sitting in those seats as well.”
