Lawsuit followed Supreme Court ruling that altered minority-voter protections
U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock on Thursday denied a request to prevent a majority-Black section of DeSoto County voters from electing new county judges in an upcoming state judicial race, leaving the majority-Black subdistricts in place for November.
The lawsuit was filed by Robert Foster, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate and current DeSoto County supervisor, and others who alleged the Mississippi Legislature’s creation of majority-Black judicial subdistricts for the state judiciary violates the Voting Rights Act. The plaintiffs sought relief that would, in effect, have blocked the new subdistricts from governing the upcoming election.
Aycock ruled that a court order changing the district lines would fall too close to the November election date — a step the U.S. Supreme Court has held lower courts should not take.
The suit followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s May decision in Louisiana v. Callais, a ruling that altered protections for minority voters during redistricting. Foster and the other plaintiffs brought the case in the wake of that decision, citing it as the legal backdrop for their challenge to the DeSoto County subdistricts.
Because Aycock’s denial rests on the proximity of the November election rather than on the merits of the Voting Rights Act claim, the broader challenge to the subdistricts remains unresolved.