Tennessee and Alabama Governors Call Special Sessions on Redistricting
Alabama and Tennessee Republican governors called special legislative sessions on Friday following the Supreme Court's redistricting ruling to consider new congressional maps.
Objective Facts
On Friday, the Republican governors of Alabama and Tennessee called for their state legislators to convene for special sessions to consider new congressional maps after a major Supreme Court decision on race and redistricting. In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey said the GOP-controlled Legislature should be prepared to set special primary elections if the Supreme Court allows them to use a congressional map that had been blocked in court, with Alabama's primaries on May 19 currently scheduled to take place using a court-ordered map that includes two districts with heavy Black populations. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said in a statement that the state owes it to Tennesseans to ensure congressional districts accurately reflect voters' will, just hours after Alabama's call, as the announcements illustrate the extraordinary speed with which some Republican states in the South are moving to seize on the high court's decision. Ivey's decision marked a reversal from her initial response to the Wednesday ruling, when she said the state was not positioned to hold a special session at that time. Earlier this week, President Donald Trump posted on social media that he had spoken with Lee about a new map in Tennessee, with any redistricting there taking aim at the Memphis-area seat held by Rep. Steve Cohen, the only Democrat remaining in Tennessee's congressional delegation.
Left-Leaning Perspective
Left-leaning outlets covered the special sessions as Republicans seizing an opportunity to eliminate minority voting power. Rep. Steve Cohen, the Memphis Democrat targeted for elimination, argued on May 1 that 'Donald Trump wants an extra seat' and 'wants to get it by directing how the districts are drawn,' and that 'Civil rights are being attacked through this Supreme Court case'. Democrats sharply criticized the ruling as an attack on voting rights, particularly against minorities in the South. Tennessee state Representatives called the move a 'rollback of the progress made during the Civil Rights Movement' and the 'largest attack on Black political representation since the end of Reconstruction,' with one stating 'A special session based on political pettiness is an insult to this chamber and to the many voices who paid with days in jail and nights of bomb threats to get the Voting Rights Act passed'. CNN's reporting highlighted that the announcements illustrate the extraordinary speed with which some Republican states in the South are moving to seize on the high court's decision and do away with previously mandated maps designed to give voters of color the opportunity to select candidates of their choosing. PBS reported that Governor Lee announced the session after a pressure campaign by Trump and other Republicans to reconfigure the state's 9th Congressional District, noting that 'Republicans have always been checkmated by the Voting Rights Act in their desire to spread the district's Democratic voters around neighboring conservative districts and make it winnable, but the law may no longer be an impediment'. Newsweek reported that the Supreme Court's shift now requires litigants to show intentional discrimination rather than simply proving the plan results in effective discrimination, giving Republican-controlled states legal cover to eliminate majority-minority districts by framing them as partisan gerrymanders, with legal experts estimating the ruling could help Republicans flip between 12 and 19 Democratic-held seats nationwide by 2028. Left-leaning coverage emphasizes the pressure from Trump and Republican Party leadership driving the governors' reversals and focuses on the targeting of Democratic seats held by minorities, while downplaying any competing concerns about fairness or responsiveness to voters.
Right-Leaning Perspective
Right-leaning coverage and Republican officials framed the special sessions as necessary responses to correct maps they argued were drawn with excessive focus on race. Alabama's GOP Chairman stated that the ruling 'reinforced what we have long argued — that redistricting should be guided by fair, constitutional principles and not driven by race'. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall told CNN's Jake Tapper that 'The Alabama in 2026 is not the Alabama of the early 1960s,' while CNN also noted that the special sessions underscore the pressure national Republican figures and party activists have exerted on state governors in recent days. Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia praised the ruling, saying it 'restores fairness to our redistricting process and allows states to pass electoral maps that reflect the will of the voters, not the will of federal judges'. Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn urged state lawmakers to draw new maps favoring Republicans in all nine districts and wrote that it is 'essential to cement @realDonaldTrump's agenda and the Golden Age of America,' pledging to 'do everything' she can to make it a reality. RedState reported that Alabama is not redistricting immediately because the state has its own judicial appeal that has not been decided, but noted the Supreme Court could reverse an earlier lower court decision that forced Alabama to create its second Black majority district. Right-leaning outlets frame the governors' decisions as prudent preparations to respond if courts allow previously blocked maps to be implemented, portraying the process as constitutionally sound responsiveness rather than partisan advantage-seeking. Right-leaning coverage emphasizes the principle of race-neutral redistricting and downplays or omits discussion of Trump's pressure campaigns and the likely partisan impact on minority representation.
Deep Dive
The special sessions called by Governors Ivey and Lee represent a significant moment in the accelerating mid-decade redistricting wars triggered by the Supreme Court's weakening of Voting Rights Act protections. Alabama and Tennessee are the first states to move aggressively to redistrict in the wake of the Wednesday ruling, in which the justices struck down Louisiana's second majority-Black congressional district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, with the 6-3 decision effectively weakening the VRA provision that has been used to justify the creation of majority-minority districts. The legal and political context matters significantly: Ivey's decision marked a reversal from her initial response to the Wednesday ruling, when she reportedly said the state was 'not in position to have a special session at this time', suggesting that pressure from national Republicans—most visibly Trump—shifted her calculation. Trump's public social media post that he had spoken with Governor Lee about a new Tennessee map underscores the coordinated nature of these efforts. Each side has valid underlying concerns that the other largely downplays. Republicans argue persuasively that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has been applied to require race-conscious redistricting in ways that go beyond protecting voting rights and instead mandate Democratic seats—a legitimate constitutional concern about the scope of racial classifications in law. However, they underemphasize or dismiss what voting rights experts document: that the shift gives Republican-controlled states legal cover to eliminate majority-minority districts by framing them as partisan gerrymanders rather than racial ones, with legal experts estimating the ruling could help Republicans flip between 12 and 19 Democratic-held seats nationwide by 2028. Democrats rightly identify the coordinated, aggressive use of the ruling to dismantle minority political power, but they often frame this purely as racial injustice while downplaying the legitimate questions about how much of the VRA's application to redistricting genuinely protects voting rights versus simply mandating partisan outcomes. The key unresolved question is whether Tennessee and Alabama courts will allow these maps to proceed. Tennessee Democrats noted that in 2022 the state supreme court checked additional redistricting because it was too close to an election, and they argued that the court is their best hope this time around, suggesting legal challenges remain the primary avenue for opposition. The extraordinary speed of these actions—announced within hours of the Supreme Court ruling—suggests Republicans will try to lock in maps before courts can intervene or before the 2026 elections proceed.