Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves on Friday signed two pieces of legislation that give the white-controlled state government power to reshape both the court system and the police in Jackson. The governor's signing of the bills follows months of public protests over the legislation - and the NAACP filed its suit in federal court the same day. The ACLU of Mississippi and other groups filed a related lawsuit in state court on Monday.
Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is spearheading the NAACP's legal fight. In a statement released by the NAACP, Holder called the legislation "disturbing," and said the Mississippi legislature was working to strip Jackson residents of their rights to elect leaders and to speak freely.
"Once again, the responsibility has fallen on us — Black advocates and citizens — to hold state lawmakers accountable and fight back against this dangerous legislation," Holder said. "I am proud to work collaboratively with the NAACP to force these undemocratic lawmakers to answer for their brazen, historically resonant actions in the public sphere — and in a court of law."
The NAACP named Reeves and several other state officials as defendants.
A spokesperson for the governor's office pointed a reporter to Reeves' recent post on Twitter, which cited Jackson's ongoing violent crime problem and the oft-repeated argument that the state moves will address it.
"Democrat politicians, and the 'defund the police' activists may be willing to stand by and do nothing. I am not," Reeves wrote. "Families in Jackson are begging for help restoring law and order to a city that desperately needs it. So, we're going to do everything we can to help them."
Reeves' post tagged the national head of the NAACP, Derrick Johnson, a Jackson resident, who had written on Twitter, "Governor Reeves cannot be allowed to treat the residents of the city of Jackson like second-class citizens. So, we're suing him."
The NAACP's suit cites the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and requests an injunction to stop implementation of HB 1020, a new law that will divert some key civil and criminal cases away from powerful elected Black judges in Jackson and toward unelected judges appointed by the state's white chief supreme court justice.
The bill adds four appointed judges to the existing circuit court in Jackson, which handles major criminal cases and key civil lawsuits and whose four elected judges are all Black. The elected judges opposed the bill.
The bill also creates a new "inferior court" to address crime in the Capitol Complex Improvement District. Expanded under the bill, the district now covers the state capitol and nearby areas that include much of the city's white population.
The lawsuit argues that these appointed judges and other officials involved in the court proceedings will be appointed by white state officials and unaccountable to the voters of Jackson.
"The insidious trope that Black-led Jackson is incapable of governing itself, or simply should not be allowed to govern itself, is a common thread animating activities ranging from the attempted takeover of the City's airport, of its drinking water system, and now of its courts," the NAACP wrote in the lawsuit.
The NAACP suit also seeks to block implementation of another new law, SB 2343, which gives the state police primary jurisdiction in the capital improvement district and secondary jurisdiction throughout the city of Jackson.
"Under the policing takeover provision, the City of Jackson is now subject to policing not only by its municipal police agency and county sheriff's office, but also by a newly extended and empowered State-run police agency," the NAACP complaint says.
"No other locality in Mississippi has been singled out for a similar law enforcement scheme. Jackson's residents alone are deprived of local, democratic control over the vital governmental function of policing."
The lawsuit also argues that new requirements for event permits in SB 2343 will make it far more difficult for activists to hold protests, marches or similar free-speech actions throughout the city.
"They have almost no ability to elect or change the officials in charge of [the statewide Mississippi Department of Public Safety] or the Capitol Police, who are not elected by the residents of Jackson or appointed by the elected leadership of Jackson," the lawsuit alleges.
"And under the prior restraint provision, they must first receive written approval from these very same officials in order to protest actions by those officials."
The lawsuit asks the court to block implementation of the laws and seeks attorney's fees.
Second Lawsuit Filed In State Court
The NAACP and other organizations have been coordinating in recent weeks on legal opposition to the bill.
On Monday, the ACLU of Mississippi announced that it had joined the MacArthur Justice Center at University of Mississippi School of Law, the Mississippi Center for Justice and the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund to file a second lawsuit challenging HB 1020, this time focusing on state law.
That second lawsuit, filed in Hinds County Chancery Court, where Jackson is located, says HB 1020 violates provisions of the Mississippi constitution that require that circuit judges be elected, the ACLU said in a news release.
The lawsuit also said the new "inferior court" lacks judicial authority under Mississippi law, the news release says.
Months of Contentious Debate
The state Senate had approved HB 1020 in a 31-15 vote on March 30 and the state House approved it, 73-41, on March 31. The bill was one of the most controversial measures of the legislative session, and the votes were largely split on racial and partisan lines as the white Republican supermajority overrode objections from Democrats and imposed its will on a majority Black capital city.
Jackson is struggling with a serious violent crime problem and a court backlog, and Republican backers of HB 1020 repeatedly said they just wanted to help.
"If I've said this once, I feel like I said it 100 times, but, I mean, [this bill is] to help with the crime situation in Jackson, which is very real," Rep. John Thomas "Trey" Lamar, the Republican House sponsor of the bill, told Law360 earlier this year. "And the judicial backlog associated with the court system in Hinds County. That's really the main purpose — to help make Jackson a safer city."
Black legislators and Jackson elected officials said the laws don't take their wishes into account.
The state legislature likewise passed SB 2343 this spring over the objections of Black lawmakers.
The situation is just one of many cases around the country of state legislatures intervening to preempt local laws.
Many people who opposed the bill said it reminded them of Mississippi's not-so-distant history of state government oppression of Black people, first through slavery, then segregation, then an official state agency to fight the civil rights movement. That state agency, the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, was created in 1956 and was not shut down until 1973.
The NAACP is represented in the federal case by Eric Holder, Carol M. Browner, Megan A. Crowley, Gary S. Guzy, Mark H. Lynch, and Brenden J. Cline of Covington & Burling LLP, by Janette Louard, Anthony Ashton and Joe R. Schottenfeld of the NAACP Office of General Counsel and by Carroll Rhodes.
Ann Saunders and other plaintiffs in the state case are represented by Cliff Johnson and Jacob W. Howard at the MacArthur Justice Center at University of Mississippi School of law, Paloma Wu and Robert B. McDuff of the Mississippi Center for Justice, and by Joshua Tom of the ACLU of Mississippi.
Counsel information for Gov. Reeves and other Mississippi officials was not immediately available.
The federal case is National Association For the Advancement of Colored People et al. v. Tate Reeves et al., case number 3:23-cv-00272, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.
The state case is Ann Saunders et al. v. Michael K. Randolph et al., case number 25CH1:23-cv-00421 in the Hinds County Chancery Court.
--Editing by Peter Rozovsky.
Update: This story has been updated to include information about the related lawsuit filed Monday in state court.
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