Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. The Senate Rules Committee on Monday afternoon killed a last-minute measure that would have turned two majority-Black state Senate districts back into majority-white districts if the U.S. Supreme Court weakens the f ederal Voting Rights Act as many expect. With only days left in the 2026 legislative session, Sen. Jeremy England, a Republican from Vancleave, filed a so-called “trigger” resolution. It would revert Mississippi’s Senate districts to their original boundaries before a federal three-judge panel ruled in 2024 that the state unconstitutionally diluted Black voting strength when it redrew legislative districts in 2022.  The federal judicial order resulted in 14 special legislative elections in Mississippi last year. But no member of the Senate Rules Committee meeting voted to advance England’s measure out of committee. Sen. Dean Kirby, a Republican from Pearl, said since the committee did not want to take action on the measure, it was dead. England told Mississippi Today that he decided to file the resolution because when the Legislature redrew its districts in 2022 to account for population shifts, it strongly considered factors such as preserving communities of interest and keeping districts compact.  “I voted in favor of those maps when we debated them the first time,” England said.  After lawmakers redrew their districts, voters sued the state and argued that Black voters in three areas of the state did not have a fair shot at electing a candidate of their choice. A panel of three federal judges agreed and ordered the Legislature to redraw certain districts again. To comply with the order, lawmakers created a majority-Black House district in the Chickasaw County area, a majority-Black Senate district in the Hattiesburg area and a majority-Black Senate district in the DeSoto County area. Because of the domino effect of changing those district lines, the state had do-over elections for 14 legislative seats last year. The special elections resulted in two new Democratic legislators — Johnny DuPree of Hattiesburg and Theresa Gillespie-Isom of Southaven —  being elected in areas that Republicans previously occupied.  DuPree told Mississippi Today that he would oppose England’s resolution and believes it’s “way too early” for the Legislature to preemptively try to respond to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it hasn’t been issued.  “This is another barrier that prevents voters from electing a representative of their choice,” DuPree said.  After the Mississippi special elections, a majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices signaled they were open to rolling back parts of the federal Voting Rights Act, which is the federal law that plaintiffs used to force the state to create additional majority-Black districts.  But Sen. Derrick Simmons, a Democrat from Greenville who leads Senate Democrats, said he doesn’t believe the Mississippi litigation would be invalidated simply because the U.S. Supreme Court restricted parts of the Voting Rights Act.  ...read more read less