Several DeSoto County residents, including former Republican gubernatorial candidate and current county Supervisor Robert Foster, have filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the Legislature’s creation of majority-black subdistricts for the state judiciary violates the Voting Rights Act.

The lawsuit argues that when the Legislature redrew the state’s judicial districts, it gave DeSoto County an additional judge for the Circuit Court and the Court of Chancery. But those judges had to be chosen from a majority-black subdistrict.

“Racially and mathematically problematic, HB 1544 and SB 2768 are doubly unconstitutional and violate federal law as they unequally treat similarly situated citizens and deny 3 out of 4 DeSoto counties the right to vote based on race,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit was filed against the three-member State Board of Election Commissioners: Governor Tate Reeves, Secretary of State Michael Watson and Attorney General Lynn Fitch. Fitch’s office will likely defend the state in the litigation, and his office did not respond to a request for comment.

State Sen. Mike McLendon, R-Hernando, is not a party to the litigation, but told Mississippi Today in a statement that he supports the lawsuit.

“DeSoto County was singled out,” McLendon said. “This is bad legislation that was designed to deny you the opportunity to vote for judges who will exercise authority over everyone in this county.”

A subdistrict is used to elect a judge from a smaller area in the main district, but the judge can still hear cases from anywhere in the district.

When legislative leaders redrawn judicial districts in 2025, they changed the districts to account for population changes and caseload data, but also allowed majority-Black subdistricts in certain areas to give Black voters the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.

The Legislature first created judicial subdistricts in the late 1980s and early 1990s, partly at the urging of former state Rep. Ed Blackmon Jr., a veteran Democratic lawmaker from Canton.

In a recent interview with Mississippi Today, Blackmon said he convinced his legislative colleagues and state judges to accept judicial subdistricts after Blackmon said he would not place a sitting judge in a subdistrict and would give more resources to all judges in the state.

“Almost every judge I talked to in the state loved him,” Blackmon said. “They would say, ‘That’s not bad.’”

One of Blackmon’s legislative colleagues who embraced the idea was Mike Mills, who, at the time, was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee A and is now a federal judge in northern Mississippi. The case was initially assigned to Mills, but he recused himself.

DeSoto County’s lawsuit is now before U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock, the same judge who previously ruled that Mississippi state Supreme Court districts violate the federal Voting Rights Act because they do not give black voters the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.

The U.S. Court of Appeals overturned Aycock’s initial ruling in light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision Louisiana v. Callais who revoked protections for minority voters during redistricting. Aycock is now assessing how that case should proceed.

The DeSoto County plaintiffs asked Aycock to block the DeSoto County map from going into effect, and a hearing is scheduled for July 22. Aycock will likely have to rule quickly because judicial elections will be held in November.

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This story was originally published by Mississippi Today and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.