Fifth Circuit vacates order requiring Mississippi to redraw state Supreme Court districts

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated the liability order in Mississippi’s state Supreme Court judicial redistricting case. The move comes after the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais where the nation’s highest court struck down Louisiana’s congressional redistricting that added a new majority-minority district, saying that lawmakers relied too heavily on race. The high court’s 6-3 ruling deemed racial gerrymandering unconstitutional as it had been practiced under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 was being used as the justification for U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock’s order that mandated the redrawing of Mississippi’s...