The NAACP is suing to stop two new laws designed to give the State of Mississippi more control over the City of Jackson and alleging they amount to race-based discrimination in a 52-page lawsuit the organization filed in federal court Saturday. Gov. Tate Reeves signed the bills at issue, House Bill 1020 and Senate Bill 2343, into law on Friday after months of controversy.
The two bills represent “a state takeover of Jackson,” with the S.B. 2343 bringing “the entire predominantly Black city of Jackson under control of the state-run Capitol Police,” the organization said in a statement Saturday. The NAACP said the law will restrict “Mississippi residents’ ability to protest and hold demonstrations in and around buildings considered property of the state, requiring written approval from the Chief of the Capitol Police or the Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety before ‘any event’ occurs.”
“The second bill, H.B. 1020, creates a new court with an unelected judge appointed by the Mississippi Supreme Court, which will have the ability to hear and determine all preliminary matters and criminal matters within the District,” the statement said. “The bill also continues a court packing plan by appointing unelected Circuit Judges to the Seventh Circuit Court District in Hinds County.”
Reeves, Department of Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell, Capitol Police Chief Bo Luckey, Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Randolph and Attorney General Lynn Fitch are all listed as defendants in the lawsuit.
The Mississippi attorney general’s office was closed Monday for the State’s Confederate Memorial Day observance, and the Mississippi Free Press did not get a response to a request for comment for this story.
The NAACP filed this lawsuit on April 22, 2023, alleging that H. B. 1020 and S. B. 2343 are racially discriminatory against the majority-Black residents of Jackson.
The “laws target Jackson’s majority-Black residents on the basis of race for a separate and unequal policing structure and criminal justice system to which no other residents of the State are subjected,” the plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit.
“Under this new regime and unlike in any other jurisdiction in