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Mississippi moms and babies suffer disproportionately. Medicaid expansion could help.

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Mississippi moms and babies suffer disproportionately. Medicaid expansion could help.

by Isabelle Taft, Mississippi Today
November 21, 2022

Note: This article is part of Mississippi Today’s ongoing Mississippi Health Care Crisis project.Read more about the project by clicking here.

During her 14 years working as an OB-GYN in Greenville, Dr. Lakeisha Richardson has seen five patients diagnosed with breast cancer during their pregnancies.

Most of them did not have health insurance prior to pregnancy, so going to the doctor for annual checkups was neither affordable nor routine. They missed out on clinical screenings and the chance to learn whether they were at higher risk of breast cancer.

Pregnancy does not cause breast cancer, but it can make it grow and spread more quickly, and breast cancer associated with pregnancy has a lower survival rate. For Richardson’s patients without health insurance, pregnancy brought Medicaid coverage that allowed them to go to the doctor for prenatal visits, and that was when their cancer was diagnosed.

One of Richardson’s patients died from breast cancer a few weeks after giving birth.

“Legislators think, women are healthy, they’re going to have a baby, and they can come off Medicaid,” Richardson said. “They don’t think that other illnesses and disease processes can exist in pregnant women.”

Mississippi doctors like Richardson see thousands of patients every year who have no health insurance, and thus limited access to affordable health care, until they become pregnant and qualify for Medicaid. If the patient has a chronic condition like diabetes or hypertension, getting treatment during pregnancy is critical – but not necessarily sufficient to prevent problems like preterm delivery, low birth weight, birth defects, and even stillbirth.

Access to routine care prior to conception increases the chance a person can have a healthy pregnancy and delivery. But in Mississippi, where one in six women of reproductive age is uninsured, preconception health care is far from universal. Under current Medicaid eligibility policy, adult women can get coverage only when they are pregnant or have kids at home and very low household income.

“If they have a preexisting disease like diabetes or hypertension, if they’re uninsured they’ve probably been off their meds for a while, so they’ll come in with elevated blood pressure, elevated glucose that have been uncontrolled for months or years,” Richardson said. “If it takes them a while to get their Medicaid and they’re already late to prenatal care, they have growth restrictions for the baby.”

It’s no secret that Mississippi is a sick state. More than one in seven Mississippians are living with diabetes, a higher rate than almost any other state. More than 700,000 Mississippians have hypertension, and the state has the country’s highest rate of deaths due to high blood pressure, as well as the country’s highest adult obesity rate, at just under 40%.

But perhaps nowhere are the consequences of sickness – sickness that is largely preventable – more evident than in the unnecessary suffering of Mississippi’s mothers and babies.

The state has the country’s highest percentage of babies born at a low weight. It has the highest percentage of preterm deliveries, which can result in costly NICU stays and long-term health consequences. Mississippi has the country’s highest rate of stillbirth. And more babies here die before their first birthday than anywhere else in the U.S.

Nationally, the leading cause of infant mortality is birth defects. But in Mississippi, the causes are more preventable: premature birth and pregnancy or delivery complications as well as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Within each of these statistics, Black women and babies suffer much more than their white counterparts.

Expanding Medicaid would not on its own solve Mississippi’s maternal and infant health crisis, which State Health Officer Dr. Daniel P. Edney has identified as a top priority. Health insurance is not the same as access to health care, and access to health care alone is not enough to ensure all Mississippians have healthy food, opportunities to exercise, and safe neighborhoods.

But OB-GYNs interviewed across the state said that lack of access to health care prior to conception is a problem they see every day. They may see a patient get her diabetes or hypertension under control when she has Medicaid coverage during her pregnancy, only to lose coverage and return to self-managing her conditions. They won’t see her again unless she gets pregnant again, and then the process of treating her chronic condition must start all over again.

“We work really hard and optimize their diabetes during pregnancy, and then they’ll be a gap in care between and patients come back for the next pregnancy and it’s like we’re starting from square one again,” said Dr. Sarah Novotny, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

An analysis by the consulting firm Manatt found that expanded Medicaid eligibility to adults with incomes below 138% of the federal poverty line would likely cut enrollment in pregnancy Medicaid by about half – meaning that it would provide more consistent coverage and access to care for about 10,000 women each year who can currently have health insurance only during and right after their pregnancies.

Dr. Jaleen Sims has worked as an OB-GYN at Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Center since 2019. The federally qualified health center offers services on a sliding scale, so it’s affordable for people without insurance.

“I serve the underserved population that experiences the most suboptimal outcomes , the highest comorbidity rates, the highest mortality rates – those are my patients,” she said.

She estimates that more than half of her patients who are pregnant with their first child have not had health insurance as adults before getting pregnant.

Medicaid offers full coverage for pregnant women with incomes 194% of the federal poverty level, or $4,603 monthly for a family of four. That ensures that low-income and working-class women can get health care during their pregnancies. About 60% of births in Mississippi are covered by Medicaid, the second-highest percentage in the country, after only Louisiana.

Hinds County has both the state’s largest number of Medicaid-covered births, at an average of 2,300 annually from 2016 to 2020, and one of the state’s highest per capita rates of pregnancies covered by Medicaid. Some people with pregnancy Medicaid have another form of insurance, too, but generally the rate of Medicaid coverage during pregnancy gives an indication of how many people lacked insurance before they conceived.

Sims sees patients with hypertension, diabetes, obesity, lupus – “those chronic medical conditions that you really want to have under very, very good control before you get pregnant.”

Diabetes is a good example of a condition that can cause problems during pregnancy– but doesn’t have to.

Sometimes Sims sees patients who got treatment for diabetes during a previous pregnancy, but stopped seeing going to the doctor when that coverage ended. Instead, they’ve tried to manage it on their own.

“Then before you know it, they’re out of the medication, they’re just kind of living,” she said. “They’re like, ‘Well, I don’t check my finger sticks, I don’t have my insulin, I don’t have my medicine. Now I don’t really know where I am at this point.’”

During pregnancy, doctors try to keep blood sugar tightly controlled. That becomes harder to accomplish when the patient’s condition isn’t well managed when they arrive for their first prenatal visit.

If blood sugar is elevated during the first 10 weeks when the fetus’s organs are developing, the risk of birth defects is higher, Novotny said, even if blood sugar is controlled later in the pregnancy.

“A lot of times women haven’t been in care, they find out they’re pregnant, sign up for Medicaid, and by the time they come to us, it’s often the end of the first trimester, when damage may already be done,” she said.

Spina bifida and heart problems are the most common birth defects associated with diabetes. People with diabetes are also at risk for preterm delivery.

Dr. Emily Johnson, an OB-GYN in the Jackson area, said it’s important for people to know that chronic conditions and risk factors during pregnancy can be managed with very good outcomes. Early communication between provider and patient is critical.

“I think them knowing that information helps them have a little autonomy that they can be responsible for their blood pressure and they know what they’re supposed to call me for,” she said. “Communicating about the risk can help them take a little ownership of it and in some way provide some reassurance.”

For many uninsured women in Mississippi, getting signed up for Medicaid is one of the first rituals of pregnancy. But getting approved is a hurdle that for some people can delay their prenatal care by days or weeks.

Providers said they largely see patients get approved within a month or so. A mistake on the paperwork, however, can delay approval.

Matt Westerfield, spokesperson at the Division of Medicaid, told Mississippi Today that according to a recent analysis by the Office of Eligibility, the average approval time for pregnancy Medicaid from Aug. 2021 to Aug. 2022 was about 24 days. That's slightly higher than the average approval time in 2021 for all eligibility categories of 20 days, according to documents Mississippi Today obtained through a records request.

Even a delay of a few weeks can make a difference, given the importance of early prenatal care. Dr. Kushna Damallie, an OB-GYN at The Woman’s Clinic in Clarksdale, said he would like to see a patient as soon as she misses a period. But that often doesn’t happen.

“One of the biggest hurdles we have in our practice is late prenatal care, no prenatal care, or insufficient prenatal care,” Dumallie said.

Westerfield told Mississippi Today that the Division of Medicaid doesn't track when women go to their first prenatal visit or what percentage take place during the first trimester of pregnancy.

Richardson said early prenatal care is particularly important for women with a condition called an incompetent cervix, in which weak cervical tissue can cause very early delivery. Black women are more at risk for this condition. One treatment to help ensure a successful delivery is a cervical cerclage, in which providers stitch the cervix closed, usually around 12 to 14 weeks of pregnancy. If that doesn’t happen in time, the risk of miscarriage is higher.

In August of this year, Richardson had a patient who was in the hospital because her water had broken well before viability. The patient had known she needed to get treatment for her incompetent cervix but had not been able to get an appointment early enough.

“She moved from another state, so she didn’t have her Mississippi Medicaid and so she couldn’t get in anywhere to be seen,” Richardson said.

OB/GYN Dr. Nina Ragunanthan poses for a portrait inside of Delta Health Center in Mound Bayou, Miss., Thursday, July 14, 2022.

While Medicaid expansion is a taboo topic among Republicans in the legislature, extending Medicaid coverage for postpartum women has bipartisan support. A measure to extend coverage from 60 days to 12 months postpartum passed the Senate resoundingly in the last session, before House Speaker Philip Gunn killed it.

Today, Mississippi is one of just two states that has neither expanded Medicaid eligibility nor extended postpartum coverage.

Senate Republicans including Sen. Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, who sponsored the measure, have vowed to reintroduce the measure in the next session, though Gunn still opposes it.

Gunn recently said he believed postpartum Medicaid extension would help only a few thousand women in Mississippi, referring to his calculation that only 60% of the 5,000 new births expected annually after the state’s abortion ban would be covered by the program and dismissing the 21,000 people already covered by pregnancy Medicaid each year.

When discussing crisis pregnancy centers, which already get a $3.5 million tax credit from the state and which Gunn wants to expand to $10 million, he offered no information about the number of people they serve and how, probably because that data is not being collected by the state.

Providers largely say they’d welcome any opportunity to lengthen the amount of time their patients have health insurance. Novotny, the maternal-fetal medicine specialist, said 12 months of coverage postpartum would give her patients a chance to control their diabetes for a longer period before becoming pregnant again.

Some providers were not aware of continuous coverage provisions during the pandemic. But those who knew about it said their patients benefited from longer access to care.

“They’ve been able to continue the management of their chronic diseases so that when they’re ready to get pregnant again, they are in a good place,” Sims said.

But postpartum Medicaid does nothing to improve access to health care before conception.

Some advocates are concerned that the conversation about postpartum Medicaid could distract from the need to address Mississippi’s health care crisis more broadly.

Nakeitra Burse, a public health consultant and advocate focused on maternal health, said some of the discussion of postpartum Medicaid seems to reflect a belief that pregnancy can be separated from the rest of a life.

“A person’s already experiencing obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and then you add pregnancy on top of that, then pregnancy also becomes a condition,” Burse said. “So you’re trying to treat all these things at one time, when people don’t even just have the opportunity to make the healthy decisions for themselves because they don’t have access to care.”

When patients do get access to care during pregnancy, making it to a doctor’s appointment isn’t as easy as it sounds.

“A lot of that decision making means: Do I miss work to go to the doctor? Do I go to the doctor over my child? It’s a lot of push and pull and give and take for the decision making that shouldn’t have to happen, if we had opportunity or access to quality health care.”

Dr. Nina Ragunanthan, an OB/GYN in Mound Bayou, pointed out that the focus on pregnancy and postpartum coverage, rather than expanding access to health care for everyone, implies that women are more deserving of care if they are giving birth than if they are not.

“I think it's really important not to just pigeonhole a woman as a child bearing vessel,” she said. “Access to care for that woman as an autonomous, independent person, regardless of whether she plans to get pregnant or not, is very important.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Control of a special session is the governor’s superpower, but is it really that super?

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9 hours ago

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May 11, 2025

By

mississippitoday.org – @BobbyHarrison9 – 2025-05-11 06:00:00


The Mississippi governor holds exclusive authority to call special sessions and set their agenda, a power granted by the state constitution. However, this power is often contested by legislators who interpret the governor’s agenda with significant leeway. The article explores past instances where disagreements arose, such as in 2008 and 2002, illustrating the tensions between the governor’s authority and legislative actions. While the governor can veto bills that exceed the special session call, the Mississippi Supreme Court has generally avoided intervening in legislative procedures, as seen in the case of the “demon chipmunk” computer application.

by Bobby Harrison, Mississippi Today
May 11, 2025

The Mississippi Constitution gives the governor the sole authority to call a special session and to set the agenda.

It is one of the few powers granted to the governor by the Mississippi Constitution.

But in reality, the special session power the governor possesses can be limited by legislators if they so choose.

Granted, the Legislature cannot convene a special session. Once legislators end a regular session, they cannot return unless called by the governor or until the next regularly scheduled session. Lawmakers are dependent on the governor to call a special session to allow them to take up a state budget, which they remarkably were unable to pass during the regular session that ended in early April.

Many believe that the governor will have more authority over the budget in special session than in regular session. For instance, can the Legislature consider a bill to fund special projects throughout the state if Gov. Tate Reeves does not include what is known by many as the “Christmas tree bill” in the agenda? Debate over that special projects bill appears to be the major sticking point preventing a budget agreement between the House and Senate. The House wants a Christmas tree bill. The Senate does not.

In 2008, then-Republican Gov. Haley Barbour called the Legislature into special session to levy a tax on hospitals to fund a $90 million Medicaid deficit. House leaders instead tried to pass a “compromise” bill that levied a tax on cigarettes, combined with a smaller hospital tax.

Republicans screamed that the cigarette tax could not be considered because it was not part of Barbour’s call. Then-Speaker Billy McCoy ruled that the governor could set the agenda for the special session — to provide more funding for Medicaid — but could not dictate how that funding was derived.

The whole issue became moot because Democrats could not garner the votes to pass their proposal. Yet, they also were able to block the hospital tax increase.

The end result was that the special session ended without the Medicaid funding issue being resolved. The issue lingered for more than a year.

In the 82-day 2002 special session, then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove placed on the agenda the issue of providing protection from lawsuits for medical providers. He said he would expand the agenda to allow lawsuit protection for all businesses after the medical provider bill reached his desk.

But the Senate leaders said the governor could not limit how they addressed lawsuit protection. They wanted to do it all in one bill.

But the House, not as set on what some called “tort reform,” said it could only address the issue of lawsuit protection for medical providers because of the agenda set by the governor.

For several days, the two chambers literally sat and stared at each other.

Finally, then-House Speaker Tim Ford asked for an official opinion from Attorney General Mike Moore on whether lawsuit protection could be considered for all businesses. Moore’s opinion said that only lawsuit protection for medical providers could be considered since that was the limit of the governor’s call.

The AG’s opinion did not carry the force of law. But the Senate leaders, who said they did not agree with the opinion, finally acquiesced and worked with the House to pass lawsuit protection for medical providers. And then, Musgrove, true to his word, expanded the call to give legislators the ability to consider additional protections for businesses.

The bottom line is that lawmakers have substantial leeway in a special session to interpret the governor’s call. By the same token, the governor can veto legislation if he thinks the Legislature exceeded his call or not sign the bill and ask the courts to block the legislative action.

But the Mississippi Supreme Court has been reluctant to get involved in the inner workings of the Legislature.

For instance, the state constitution gives any legislator the option to have a bill read before final passage. That provision has been used as a method to slow down the legislative process or as a form of protest. In recent years, the legislative leadership countered by using a computer application to have the bills read at a super high speed. The program, spitting out words at an incomprehensible speed, was dubbed the “demon chipmunk.”

The leadership was sued, claiming the demon chipmunk speed violated the state constitution.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the legislative leadership and the demon chipmunk.

The majority opinion read, “We hold the court lacks constitutional authority to interfere in the procedural workings of the Legislature, even when those procedures are constitutionally mandated.”

If Supreme Court justices are not going to strike down the demon chipmunk, would they get involved in a fight over the interpretation of the governor’s special session agenda?

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Control of a special session is the governor's superpower, but is it really that super? appeared first on mississippitoday.org


Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article maintains a neutral tone while exploring the power dynamics between Mississippi’s governor and the legislature regarding special sessions. It does not advocate for a specific political stance but rather provides historical context and examples of how the governor’s authority over special sessions has been exercised and contested. The article focuses on the intricacies of governance and the balance of power, presenting both the limitations and potential for conflict in the special session process without showing clear bias toward either political party or perspective.

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Mississippi Today

Even in red America, clean energy is booming. But now, huge renewable projects are dead.

Published

1 day ago

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May 10, 2025

By

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-05-10 06:00:00


Renewable energy in the U.S. has experienced significant growth, with solar, wind, and geothermal energy tripling over the past decade, significantly reducing emissions and improving resilience. However, these advancements are now facing increased resistance, particularly due to President Trump’s efforts to dismantle federal climate policies. Despite widespread adoption in red states like Florida and North Carolina, nearly \$8 billion in renewable energy investments were canceled in early 2025 due to market uncertainty and concerns over potential cuts to clean energy tax credits. This decline in investment reflects broader concerns about the future of renewable energy in the U.S. under changing political conditions.

by Ames Alexander, Floodlight, Mississippi Today
May 10, 2025

This story was originally published by Floodlight.

Renewable energy in the United States has surged to unprecedented levels, with the combined power generated by solar, wind and geothermal more than tripling over the past decade, according to a new report by a network of state environmental groups.

The growth has slashed harmful greenhouse gas emissions, made the nation’s energy system more resilient and prevented thousands of premature deaths from power plant pollution, according to the report by Environment America.

But this progress faces increasing resistance as President Donald Trump in his first 15 weeks in office has begun to dismantle federal policies and spending aimed at slowing climate change.

It’s all happening at a time of heightened concern among environmentalists. Despite an international accord to lower greenhouse gas emissions, the atmosphere now contains record levels of heat-trapping gasses. All 50 states have warmed since the first Earth Day in 1970, according to a new analysis by Climate Central, an independent nonprofit group that researches and disseminates information about climate change and its effects.

Among the highlights of the Environment America report:

  • The amount of solar energy produced in 2024 — enough to power 28 million homes — was nearly eight times higher than a decade earlier. Solar power production increased 27% from 2023 to 2024.
  • Wind produced even more energy — enough to power 42 million homes in 2024. The amount of power from wind has more than doubled over the past decade.
  • Wind, solar and geothermal energy accounted for 19% of all retail sales of electricity last year, according to the federal data used to produce the report.
  • The amount of utility-scale battery storage in the United States grew 63% from 2023 to 2024 — and a more than 80-fold increase over the past decade.
  • Nearly 3.3 million electric vehicles were on U.S. roads at the end of 2023 – a 25-fold increase from 2014. The number of electric vehicle charging ports, meanwhile, grew to more than 218,000 at the end of 2024 – six times more than 2015 and a 24% increase from just the year before.

More than 1.5 million plug-in electric vehicles were sold in 2024, an increase of more than 7% over the previous year, according to Argonne National Laboratory. Nearly 300,000 new electric vehicles were sold in the United States during the first quarter of 2025 — an 11% increase over the same period last year, Kelley Blue Book data shows.

“The growth of these clean energy technologies is now clearly benefiting people in all 50 states, and they’re really providing the building blocks of a clean energy system free from dirty and inefficient fuels,” said Johanna Neumann, senior director of the Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy, which is led by Environment America. “And the more that we can accelerate the progress that we’ve seen, the better it’ll be for our health and for our environment.” 

Most of the states that have seen the biggest percentage increases in wind, solar and geothermal energy over the past decade are in the South — and most are Republican states, according to a Floodlight analysis of the federal data used in the Environment America report. 

Some of those states, including Mississippi and Alabama, still rank low in the total amount of renewable energy produced. But other right-leaning Southern states, including Florida and North Carolina, now rank above most others in terms of the total renewable energy generated.

Farmland in Dundee, Miss., is overlooked by rotating wind turbines on Oct. 14, 2024.

Billions in clean-energy projects canceled 

For those concerned about climate change, however, a new analysis points to a more worrisome sign: Almost $8 billion in investments — including 16 large-scale factories and other projects — were canceled, closed or downsized in the first three months of 2025, according to the report by E2, a nonpartisan group of business leaders who advocate for sound environmental policies.

Likely contributing to the cancellations: market uncertainty and the debate in Congress over repealing tax credits and other incentives for clean energy projects. The $7.9 billion in investments withdrawn this year are more than three times the amount canceled over the previous two years, the E2 report notes.

“Clean energy companies still want to invest in America, but uncertainty over Trump administration policies and the future of critical clean energy tax credits are taking a clear toll,” E2 spokesman Michael Timberlake said in a statement.

The Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s massive climate law, extended renewable energy tax credits until at least 2032. Whether the Republican-controlled Congress will eliminate those tax credits is unclear.

“I think that market certainty has been stripped away for many of these technologies right now, and they’re feeling uneasy,” Neumann said. “And so it’s not surprising to me that we’re seeing a retraction in investment.”

Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Even in red America, clean energy is booming. But now, huge renewable projects are dead. appeared first on mississippitoday.org


Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The article presents a factual overview of the recent developments in renewable energy, particularly the increasing resistance and setbacks in clean energy projects in the United States. While the article details the progress in renewable energy and highlights concerns about the future of such projects under the current administration, it frames the issue within the broader context of environmental and policy debates. The use of terms such as “climate change,” “dismantling federal policies,” and “uncertainty over Trump administration policies” leans toward a more critical stance on current Republican policies, giving it a Center-Left tilt. It focuses on the negative consequences of policy changes rather than offering a balanced perspective of the differing political views on the matter. However, the article does not overtly push a particular political agenda, keeping the analysis grounded in facts. The presentation of both positive growth in renewable energy and the resulting challenges contributes to a generally neutral reporting style, albeit with a slight emphasis on environmental concerns that align with Center-Left ideologies.

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Mississippi Today

Federal court approves Mississippi legislative redistricting. Special elections will proceed

Published

2 days ago

on

May 9, 2025

By

mississippitoday.org – @GeoffPender – 2025-05-09 11:49:00


A federal court panel has approved Mississippi’s revised legislative redistricting plan, allowing special elections for 15 legislative seats to proceed. The court had previously determined that the 2022 district maps diluted Black voters’ power, particularly in DeSoto County. While some areas, like Chickasaw County, were accepted, the DeSoto County plan was rejected for combining predominantly Black towns with high-turnout white communities, which made it difficult for Black voters to elect their preferred candidates. The court ordered a new Senate map and set a schedule for special elections, with candidate qualifications running from June 2-9 and the general election on November 4.

by Geoff Pender, Mississippi Today
May 9, 2025

A panel of three federal judges has approved a revised legislative redistricting plan from the Mississippi Election Commission, which will allow special elections to move forward this year for 15 legislative seats.

The court in April had ordered state officials to develop yet another legislative map to ensure Black voters in the DeSoto County area have a fair opportunity to elect candidates to the state Senate.

The panel, comprised of U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan, U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden and U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Leslie Southwick, previously ruled that when lawmakers redrew their districts in 2022 to account for population shifts, they violated federal civil rights law because the maps diluted Black voting power.

To remedy the violation, the court allowed the Legislature to propose a new House map redrawing House districts in the Chickasaw County area and a new Senate map redrawing districts in the DeSoto County and Hattiesburg areas.

Earlier this year, during the 2025 session, the Legislature attempted to comply with the order and tweaked those districts. However, the plaintiffs still objected to parts of the Legislature’s plan.

The plaintiffs, the state chapter of the NAACP and Black voters from around the state, did not object to the Hattiesburg portion of the Senate plan. But they argued the Chickasaw County portion of the House plan and the DeSoto County portion of the Senate plan did not create a realistic opportunity for Black voters in those areas to elect their preferred candidates. 

The judges accepted the Chickasaw County redistricting portion. Still, they objected to the DeSoto County part because the Legislature’s proposed DeSoto County solution “yokes high-turnout white communities in the Hernando area of DeSoto County to several poorer, predominantly Black towns in the Mississippi Delta,” which would make it hard for Black voters to overcome white voting blocs. 

The panel, comprised of all George W. Bush-appointed judges, ordered state officials to, again, craft a new Senate map for the area in the suburbs of Memphis. The panel has held that none of the state’s prior maps gave Black voters a realistic chance to elect candidates of their choice.

The court in its latest ruling set deadlines and a schedule for special elections for Mississippi legislative seats impacted by the new maps.

The deadline to publicize and share the maps with local election officials is May 12. Candidate qualification to run will run from June 2-9 and the slate of candidates will be submitted by June 13. Absentee voting for the Aug. 5 primaries will begin June 21.

Absentee voting for general elections will begin Sept. 20 and general elections will be Nov. 4.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Federal court approves Mississippi legislative redistricting. Special elections will proceed appeared first on mississippitoday.org


Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article maintains a factual and neutral tone, focusing primarily on the legal proceedings and the federal court’s decision regarding Mississippi’s legislative redistricting. While it highlights the concerns raised by plaintiffs (the NAACP and Black voters) regarding the adequacy of the proposed maps, the article does not offer an ideological stance or overtly favor any side. It provides balanced reporting on both the court’s ruling and the objections of the plaintiffs without promoting a specific political viewpoint. The use of straightforward legal and procedural language helps ensure that the report adheres to neutral, factual reporting.

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