Zach Servis won 621 votes in Jackson's 2025 mayoral election, or 2.5 percent of the total. Fifteen months later, the city is in federal court because of how it treated him at a council meeting, and the case is about far more than one man's yellow campaign shirt.

Servis filed the lawsuit Aug. 11 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, according to the Clarion Ledger. Named as defendants are the City of Jackson, the City Council, Ward 4 Councilman Brian Grizzell, and former Ward 7 Councilwoman Virgi Lindsay, who was council president when Servis was removed.

The dispute began May 20, 2025. Servis approached the podium wearing a shirt reading “Zach Servis For Mayor of JXN.” Lindsay told him he could not wear it because City Hall was serving as an absentee polling place ahead of the June general election. Servis stepped into an office to turn the shirt around. When he returned, Lindsay barred him from speaking, and Grizzell called for a police officer to escort him out.

The polling-place justification appears to have been wrong. The Clarion Ledger reported at the time that the Mississippi Secretary of State's office said the state's 150-foot campaign restriction applies only while a polling place is open. Voting had ended for the day.

The lawsuit does not stop at the shirt. It also cites a July 8, 2025 meeting where Grizzell cut Servis off while he criticized the municipal clerk, and a July 15 meeting where Grizzell warned that comments “of a personal nature” about council members or staff would not be allowed.

At the center of the case is Jackson Code of Ordinances § 2-71(f), which bars public commenters from making “personal, impertinent, or slanderous remarks” and from using “abusive, vulgar, or profane language.” Servis is asking the court to declare the rule unconstitutional and to stop the city from enforcing it, along with nominal damages and attorneys' fees.

The national free-speech group FIRE flagged these problems a year before the lawsuit. In an Oct. 7, 2025 letter to the council, FIRE argued the ordinance is viewpoint-discriminatory because it lets officials be “praised but not condemned.” The group noted that Servis was allowed to praise city employees without interruption during a July 29, 2025 meeting, which it said confirmed the rule cuts against criticism.

FIRE sent a second letter Dec. 9, 2025, after the council did not respond to the first. The city did not respond to either, Servis told the Clarion Ledger. He said he gave Mayor John Horhn and the new council a year to change the rules before moving forward.

Servis's attorneys are Joel Dillard and Kevin Hanlon. Dillard previously represented Toby Price, the Hinds County educator fired in 2022 after reading the children's book “I Need a New Butt!” to second-graders, a case that also turned on speech and public employment.

The city has not filed a response as of the filing's first week. Grizzell said he had no comment, and Lindsay said the matter is now in litigation. Nic Lott, the city's communications director, did not respond to requests for comment, according to the Clarion Ledger.

Servis said he is not seeking a payout. “My goal is not to make money from this, but instead to set a precedent in our city and our nation that our First Amendment rights must be respected,” he said in a statement. He also said he is considering another run for office if the city's direction has not changed by 2029.

The case will test whether a rule that survived decades of council meetings can survive a federal judge. Servis, who once weighed risking arrest rather than leave the chamber, now says he rarely attends meetings at all. “I can't afford to be getting arrested,” he said.