Last week’s Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais dramatically altered the legal landscape for redistricting across the South, and Tennessee wasted no time responding. In a 6-3 decision, the Court struck down Louisiana’s majority-Black congressional district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, substantially narrowing the scope of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act for challenging district maps. Critically, the Court raised the evidentiary bar for plaintiffs, requiring them to prove discriminatory intent tied to present-day conditions and to offer alternative maps that also satisfy a state’s legitimate redistricting goals, making it significantly harder to bring successful Voting Rights Act challenges. The ruling gave Republican-controlled legislatures across the South a new opening to redraw maps that had previously been drawn or maintained under threat of Section 2 litigation, and Tennessee moved faster than any other state to act on it.
Gov. Bill Lee called a special legislative session on May 5, and by May 6, lawmakers had released a proposed new map targeting the state’s only Democratic-held congressional seat, the Memphis-based 9th District, a majority-Black district long held by Rep. Steve Cohen. Republican state Sen. John Stevens, the bill’s sponsor, was unambiguous about the map’s intent, stating that the Legislature was “attempting to maximize the chances that the congressional delegation of Tennessee will maintain a Republican majority.” The proposed map cracks the Memphis area into three separate districts, stretching each hundreds of miles eastward into more rural, Republican-leaning territory, effectively submerging the city’s Democratic and Black voters into districts where they would be far outnumbered. Nashville, the state’s other major Democratic stronghold, is divided into five districts under the new map. The session drew intense public opposition, with protesters filling the Capitol, state troopers clearing committee rooms, and one state senator standing on her desk holding a sign reading “No Jim Crow.”
Both chambers passed the map on May 7, and Gov. Lee signed it into law the same day, making Tennessee the ninth state to enact a new congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterms. The Legislature also passed a package of companion bills: one repealing a prior Tennessee law that prohibited mid-decade redistricting, one suspending normal candidate residency requirements for 2026 congressional races, and one opening a new candidate-qualifying window through May 15 to allow candidates to file under the redrawn districts. Legal challenges followed almost immediately, with the Tennessee chapter of the NAACP filing suit on Thursday, arguing the map unlawfully dilutes Black voting power. How courts evaluate that claim will be one of the first major tests of how much legal force remains in Section 2 after Callais, a question whose answer will reverberate well beyond Tennessee as other Southern states weigh their own redistricting moves in the weeks ahead.
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