Photo: Getty Images
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed a bill on Thursday (May 7) approving a new congressional map that eliminates the state’s only Black-majority district.
The new map splits Memphis and Shelby County into three separate districts, effectively eliminating Tennessee’s only Democratic seat represented by Rep. Steve Cohen, according to The New York Times.
The map was the first to be crafted following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana last week, which struck down a Black-majority district in the state as a racial gerrymander and weakened a provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The law was passed following a special legislative session called by Lee shortly after he spoke with President Donald Trump by phone at the end of April, during which he reportedly instructed Lee to pass the map. Several protestors gathered in the Capitol during the session to pass the legislation, but were swiftly removed by state troopers as it passed without public input.
Members of the Tennessee legislature, which is majority-Republican, insisted that the new map was not drawn up based on race, but rather to comply with the Supreme Court decision based on partisanship.
“It was absolutely drafted on politics,” Rep. Jason Zachary of Knoxville said. “We’re taking advantage of that as the supermajority in this body.”
State Democrats, however, noted that around two-thirds of Memphis voters are Black and claimed the bill was aimed at eliminating fair representation.
“You cannot take a majority Black city, fracture its voting power, and then tell us race has nothing to do with it,” Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat, said after asking Sen. John Stevens — the bill’s sponsor — if he was aware that Memphis is predominantly Black. Stevens simply responded that he was not.
“Racism does not become less racist because it’s called partisan,” Lamar added.
Lee also signed two additional bills relating to congressional districts on Thursday. The first is a repeal of state law that bars lawmakers from redistricting between censuses for over five decades, according to Democracy Docket.
The second is an amendment stating that county elections officials are no longer required to notify voters of changes to their designated polling places when electoral lines get redrawn.
Norman Ornstein, a former political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute, called it the amendment “Jim Crow on steroids” in a statement posted to X on Thursday.
The NAACP’s Tennessee chapter filed a lawsuit less than three hours after Lee signed the congressional map into law, according to Tennessee Lookout. Cohen said on Thursday that he also plans on challenging the new map in court.
"There will be a lawsuit in state court,” he said during a press conference. “If the courts rule that this district has not had enough time to have an election, and the election process has already started, that would infringe on First Amendment rights of candidates who've already started campaigning.”
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