Tennessee's Republican-controlled legislature dismantled the state's only Democratic, Black-majority congressional district on Thursday, moving with striking speed after the US Supreme Court weakened federal voting rights safeguards. The new maps transform all nine of Tennessee's congressional seats into Republican-leaning districts.
The surgery on Tennessee's Ninth District, anchored in Memphis, fragments the area into three pieces designed to dilute Black voting power. Each of the three new districts contains roughly one-third of Memphis' Black voters, scattering them across sprawling geographies that snake from the city's center nearly 200 miles to Nashville's suburbs. The chamber erupted during debate as Democratic lawmakers confronted the maneuver directly.
"If Republican policies are so great, why are we changing the lines to rig elections?" State Representative Vincent Dixie of Nashville asked the chamber. "Where is your humanity in this?"
House Speaker Cameron Sexton directed state troopers to remove audience members from the gallery who had begun shouting in protest. State Representative Justin Jones, a Memphis Democrat, handed a Republican colleague a Confederate flag and denounced what he called a "Jim Crow process." Jones submitted amendments that Sexton ruled were submitted too late to be considered.
The timing of the redistricting reveals the leverage the Supreme Court's decision carries. Eight days before Thursday's vote, the Court's Callais v Landry ruling invalidated major portions of the Voting Rights Act that had blocked states from drawing maps deliberately disadvantaging Black voters. Tennessee had resisted earlier calls from Donald Trump to pursue mid-decade redistricting before the court acted. Once the decision came down, the Republican leadership moved swiftly.
"This will ensure the state's representation in Washington reflects its conservative values," Sexton said of the new maps.
Trump carried Tennessee in 2024 by nearly 30 points. But the state as a whole gives one-third of its votes to Democratic congressional candidates. Republicans already hold eight of nine seats. The redraw guarantees that imbalance stays in place for the next decade.
Voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams testified before a committee hearing the day before the vote, directly addressing what she saw happening in the chamber.
"Democracy is an action, one that says I will share my power with those I disagree with because it is the only way to guarantee our common future," Abrams said. "Backsliding into authoritarianism, where one party and one race holds dominion, is unworthy of the Volunteer State."
Democratic lawmakers pointed to specifics in the map that suggested race, not just partisan advantage, drove the redrawing. State Senator London Lamar of Memphis noted that while Black Democrats in Memphis were split nearly evenly across three districts, white Democrats ended up concentrated in the newly drawn eighth district at 72 percent.
"That's not how you do partisan gerrymandering," Lamar said. "Why does this map treat the Black Democrats of Memphis so differently than the white Democrats of Memphis?"
The legislative process itself became a flash point. State Representative Justin Pearson, a Memphis Democrat running to replace longtime Congressman Steve Cohen, described the debate as perfunctory. Pearson was one of three lawmakers expelled from the legislature in 2023 for staging a floor protest over gun legislation.
"Speakers got three minutes," Pearson said of Wednesday's committee hearing. "Then we moved to a closed session without the public." He said Republicans had to be pressured just to agree to any time limit for debate, and that the entire process reflected how the chamber operates.
"It's mobcratic rule," Pearson said. "That's what happened with our expulsion, and that's what's happening now."
Lamar also pointed to a pattern of Republican takeovers of Memphis-area institutions. "This past session, you didn't like our school board and took that over. You didn't like our airport authority and took that over. And now you don't like the way Memphis votes," she said. "You cannot believe in local control while stripping Memphis voters from meaningful representation."
Author James Rodriguez: "The speed and mechanics here are chilling. Abrams was right to call out what amounts to a race-based power grab dressed up in partisan language, and the legislature's contempt for minority testimony and debate makes clear there's no pretense of good faith at work."
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