Tennessee Republicans Redraw Congressional Maps Amid Voting Rights Controversy
Democratic Tennessee congressman Steve Cohen announced Friday that he won't seek reelection to represent District 9 after Tennessee enacted a new U.S. House map that carves Memphis into three districts.
Objective Facts
The Tennessee Legislature passed a new U.S. congressional map that will favor Republicans in all nine of the state's districts, with the bill passing Thursday and being signed by Governor Bill Lee, as state lawmakers faced a tight deadline to get the maps approved ahead of the state's August primary election. The new map splits the state's last majority-minority U.S. House district in Memphis across three seats as Republicans attempt to flip the last Democratic-held district. The new map, which comes in response to last week's U.S. Supreme Court's redistricting ruling, puts Republicans in position to pick up a House seat in the midterm elections. A seismic Supreme Court ruling last week that effectively eliminated the racial gerrymandering protections from the Voting Rights Act has further supercharged the trend. Lee and lawmakers were pressured by President Donald Trump to draw a new map as the president faces the prospect of an unfavorable 2026 midterm election result. The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Tennessee filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to block the state's new congressional district map, citing intentional racial discrimination and First Amendment retaliation against Black voters, marking the third lawsuit to challenge the redrawn map. Steve Cohen announced on May 15, 2026 that he will not run in any of the three districts now containing parts of Memphis after Tennessee's Republican supermajority passed a redrawn congressional map splitting up District 9, a majority-Black, majority-Democrat district that Cohen has served for the last 19 years.
Left-Leaning Perspective
John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in a statement that the proposal "takes an already egregious gerrymander to an even greater extreme by carving up Memphis into three districts, connecting it to rural areas hundreds of miles away—communities with needs far different from those of Memphians," and that it "robs Black voters of the ability to elect a congressional candidate of their choice." The Intercept reported that Republican lawmakers raced to deliver on the barely veiled promises of the Supreme Court's decision to gut the Voting Rights Act, with Democratic state Rep. Justin Pearson saying "These maps are racist tools of white supremacy, at the behest of the most powerful white supremacist in the United States of America, Donald J. Trump," and calling the gerrymandered maps a "political lynching" that "set our state back over 150 years." Senator London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat, said before the Senate adopted the map that "Black bodies lay in rivers and in fields all across this country because they dared to speak out for representation and the right to vote." The NAACP's new federal case marks a major shift from its first challenge, which focused largely on whether Tennessee Republicans violated state law by rushing through a mid-decade redistricting plan, going further to argue Tennessee lawmakers intentionally discriminated against Black voters in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Civil rights groups allege that lawmakers introduced, debated and passed the map in roughly 48 hours while limiting public input and ignoring warnings from Black lawmakers, civil rights groups and Memphis residents. After Democrats protested the map during the special session, Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton stripped all House Democrats of their committee and subcommittee assignments, further weakening their ability to debate legislation. Steve Cohen wrote in a statement that "Tennessee Republicans silenced the Black vote here in Memphis to make Republican victories likely," and stated "We are still fighting, and if we prevail in the courts and the 9th District remains intact, I will remain a candidate and will be proud to represent you for another two years." Left-leaning coverage emphasizes that the map was rushed through without public input following the Supreme Court's weakening of Voting Rights Act protections, characterizing it as a direct response to that judicial opening rather than an independent policy choice.
Right-Leaning Perspective
State Senator John Stevens, the Republican sponsor, repeatedly stated "Tennessee is a conservative state, and this map ensures that our congressional delegation reflects that," emphasizing "This is about allowing Tennessee to maximize its partisan advantage." Republican lawmakers defended the redistricting effort as a partisan strategy designed to send an all-Republican congressional delegation to Washington. Williamson County GOP Chairman Steve Hickey said the current Tennessee map is a reaction to states controlled by Democrats in places like the northeast and other deep blue states that have enacted gerrymandered maps, pointing out that the last time Democrats drew a House map in Tennessee, Shelby County was split into thirds, with that district being "probably in the top two" on the "gerrymandering hall of fame." State House Speaker Cameron Sexton stated in his official statement that "The Supreme Court has opined that redistricting, like the judicial system, should be color-blind. The decision indicated states like Tennessee can redistrict based on partisan politics," and that "Tennessee's redistricting will reduce the risk of future legal challenges while promoting sound and strategic conservatism." Several Republicans argued the new districts, which now stretch from Memphis into the Nashville suburbs, are actually more representative of the state's population than packing Black voters who overwhelmingly support Democrats into a single seat. Dr. Carol Swail, a former Vanderbilt University law and political science professor, stated "I think that the plan that's been put forth is not a racist plan," and pointed to Memphis' current congressman Steve Cohen as an example for why the issue is not about race, noting "It's had a white representative, and this is an opportunity for a black Republican to get elected." Right-leaning outlets emphasize the partisan and not racial nature of the maps, pointing to the Supreme Court's recent ruling as legal cover and citing precedent from Democratic-controlled states' similar redistricting efforts. This framing downplays the racial demographics of Memphis and the historical context of Voting Rights Act protections.
Deep Dive
The Tennessee redistricting story is fundamentally about a specific angle: whether partisan intent provides legal and political justification for a map that has severe racial consequences, particularly in the context of the Supreme Court's recent weakening of Voting Rights Act protections. The core question involves competing views on causation and intent. What led to this moment: President Trump posted on Truth Social on April 30 that Governor Bill Lee "would work hard to correct the unconstitutional flaw in the Congressional Maps of the Great State of Tennessee." The Supreme Court ruled on April 29, 2026 in Louisiana v. Callais that Louisiana's current redistricting map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the Fifteenth Amendment. Following the decision, prominent Republican politicians began pushing for the redrawing of Tennessee's 9th congressional district. The redistricting efforts, which started last year at Trump's behest to the Republican-led legislature in Texas, have spread to at least nine other states, led by both parties. This timing is crucial: Republicans moved with extraordinary speed specifically because they believed the Supreme Court had created legal space to challenge majority-minority districts. What each perspective gets right and wrong: Republicans are correct that the Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais does permit states to draw maps based on partisan considerations, even when those maps have disparate racial impacts. The legal standard articulated by Republican leaders reflects current constitutional doctrine as interpreted by the Supreme Court's conservative majority. However, left-leaning critics correctly observe that the timing—the map was introduced, debated, and passed in 48 hours following the Supreme Court ruling—suggests the racial impact was not incidental to the partisan strategy but rather the objective of the partisan strategy. Republicans claim reliance on census data (which is race-neutral on its face), but census data clearly identifies racial demographics; the fact that lawmakers refused to acknowledge whether they knew Memphis was majority-Black, as alleged in lawsuits, undermines claims of color-blindness. Democrats' reciprocal argument—that similar maps in California and Virginia justify Tennessee's action—contains an internal contradiction: if partisan gerrymandering is wrong regardless of who does it, then "both sides did it" is not a justification but rather an indictment of the entire system. However, Cohen's point that Democrats must respond to Republican aggression reflects real political constraints. What to watch next: Four lawsuits are pending, with the fastest-moving asking judges to block the map before the August 6 primary. Rep. Steve Cohen announced Friday he will not seek reelection and instead retire at the end of his term, after his Memphis district was carved up in the state assembly's redistricting effort. The courts must decide whether intentional racial discrimination can be inferred from a map that perfectly correlates with partisan advantage, or whether partisan intent shields even racially extreme maps from challenge. Tennessee courts have previously rejected voter standing to challenge gerrymandering, so federal courts are the critical venue. Whether other Southern states (Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina) follow Tennessee's model may depend on the outcome of these lawsuits. The 2026 midterm results themselves will test whether the maps produce the partisan advantage Republicans seek, or whether the geographic dispersion of Democratic voters into rural areas creates unexpected vulnerabilities.