DeSoto County lawmakers question cost, fairness and need for new maps at redistricting hearing
Mississippi lawmakers weighing whether to redraw the state’s political maps heard pointed concerns from DeSoto County legislators at a public hearing in Southaven, where speakers questioned the cost of years of redistricting litigation, the fairness of the county’s judicial voting districts, and whether a new map is needed at all.
The Legislature’s Standing Joint Committee on Reapportionment and Redistricting took public testimony Thursday, Aug. 27, at a Northwest Mississippi Community College facility in DeSoto County. It was one of eight hearings the committee is holding across the state to gather input before recommending new legislative, judicial and congressional districts to the full Legislature, which is expected to take the maps up in a special session this fall.
The push for new lines follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s May 2026 decision in a Louisiana case, Callais, which Republican legislative leaders say clears the way to redraw districts mid-decade. Civil rights groups and Black lawmakers have called the effort a “power grab” that would dismantle majority-Black districts and weaken Black political representation.
State Sen. Michael McLendon, a DeSoto County Republican, told the committee that state and county governments have spent millions of dollars over several years defending district lines against civil rights groups. He said the law firm Butler Snow has billed the state $758,446 over the past five years, while DeSoto County has separately spent about $3 million on its own legal defense.
“DeSoto County has spent $3 million fighting ACLU, NAACP, and whoever else wanted to pile on for minority majority districts,” McLendon said.
McLendon told the committee that, combined, the state and county costs work out to about $116.17 for each of the roughly 34,500 students in DeSoto County schools, for a single year.
State Rep. Kimberly Remak, a DeSoto County Republican, told the committee that the county’s judicial subdistrict system gives most voters less say than their neighbors over who sits on the circuit and chancery bench. Voters inside the subdistrict, she said, “have seven votes for judges, four circuit judges and three chancellors,” while voters outside it — “approximately 86% of DeSoto County’s voting age population” — have “only five votes for judges and three circuit judges and two chancellors.” The arrangement, she said, “creates two different classes of voters in the same county.”
The subdistrict Remak described was created when the Legislature redrew Mississippi’s court districts in 2025, adding circuit and chancery judgeships to be elected from majority-Black areas within the county. That plan is the subject of a federal lawsuit filed in July by DeSoto County residents — including county Supervisor Robert Foster — who argue it divides voters by race. Supporters of the subdistricts say they give Black voters a fair chance to elect judges of their choice.
A legislator identified in the meeting record as state Rep. John Faulkner questioned why taxpayers should pay for a redraw that, in his account, no one had requested, arguing the current maps are already legal.
“Our current maps are legal. There’s no legal requirement forcing us to redraw these maps at this time,” Faulkner said, according to the record. “So, I asked the question, what problem are we solving? And why are the taxpayers being asked to pay to solve a problem they never asked us to address in the first place?”
The comments put him at odds with colleagues who have been pushing the process forward, and raised the question of whether a new map is legally necessary before the next census.
The committee took no action at the hearing, which was one of several it has scheduled to take public testimony on redistricting.