Recent Development by Leigh Shipp
Mississippi lost one congressional seat following the 2000 census, reducing its number of representatives in the United States Congress from five to four. Following the Mississippi Legislature's failure to redistrict, Beatrice Branch and a group of Democratic plaintiffs (state plaintiffs) filed a lawsuit in Mississippi State Chancery Court in October 2001, requesting that the state court assume jurisdiction and adopt a new districting plan if the legislature remained deadlocked. The State Chancery Court adopted a redistricting plan proposed by the state plaintiffs, and the state attorney general submitted this plan to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for preclearance. Meanwhile, John Smith and a group of Republican plaintiffs (federal plaintiffs) filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, seeking to enjoin the use of any redistricting plan issued by the state court and requesting that the court order at-large elections pursuant to Mississippi Code Annotated section 23-15-1039 and 2 U.S.C. § 2a(c)(5), or, alternatively, that the federal court issue its own redistricting plan.
The United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi developed a redistricting plan to be used if the DOJ failed to obtain timely preclearance of the State Chancery Court plan. The district court then enjoined the use of the state-court plan and ordered that the district court plan be used for the 2002 elections and all following elections until the state developed a plan and obtained preclearance by the DOJ. Subsequently, the state plaintiffs (intervenors in the district court) appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The Court held that the district court properly enjoined enforcement of the state-court redistricting plan and that the redistricting plan issued by the district court pursuant to 2 U.S.C. § 2c was appropriate; thus, neither Mississippi Code Annotated section 23-15-1039 nor 2 U.S.C. § 2a(c)(5) was applicable. Branch v. Smith, 123 S. Ct. 1429, 1437, 1443 (2003).
About the Author
Leigh Shipp.
Citation
78 Tul. L. Rev. 1729 (2004)