Revealed: Mississippi bill would carve out separate judicial district for 80% of white residents in majority-Black city

The measure would increase the geographic size of an improvement district in the downtown area of the city of Jackson from 7.8 sq miles to 25 sq miles. It would create a new unelected judicial district within the city, with two judges, two prosecutors and two public defenders.

Trey Lamar, the Republican representative who introduced the legislation, did not respond to interview requests.

The bill, which passed the Mississippi house of representatives in a 76-38 vote last week, largely on party lines, will travel to the Republican-dominated senate. If it is signed into law, civil rights advocates expect a number of legal challenges to follow in state and federal court due to alleged violations of the Voting Rights Act and the Mississippi state constitution.

Until 2013, when the US supreme court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Mississippi had to get election changes approved by the federal government before they went into effect. Had the state submitted the proposal for the new district, McCrary said, he was certain it would not have been approved.

Badat added that the bill was part of a nationwide trend in which increasingly Republican state legislatures are moving to exert more control over jurisdictions where there are large Black populations. For example, he said, there was a proposal in Missouri that would appoint a special prosecutor to handle crime in St Louis.

In Jackson, residents and advocacy groups have expressed concern about the proposed expansion of the capitol police force, a department created in 2021 and initially tasked with patrolling state government buildings in the city.

The force, which has expanded significantly in the past year, has been involved in a number of controversial use-of-force incidents in recent months. In September 2022, 25-year-old Jaylen Lewis was shot dead during an incident following a traffic stop. The department, which patrols an area less than eight square miles, has been involved in at least four officer-involved shootings since its creation, according to the Mississippi Free Press.

The force did not respond to a request for comment.