Tenn. passes new potential 9-0 GOP U.S. House map eight days after SCOTUS guts Voting Rights Act

The Tennessee Legislature passed a new U.S. Congressional Map that will favor Republicans in all nine of the state’s districts ahead of this year’s midterm election.

The bill passed Thursday and is expected to be quickly signed by Gov. Bill Lee, as state lawmakers faced a tight deadline to get the maps approved ahead of the state’s August primary election, set to take place in 90 days. 

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. Democrats are expected to file a lawsuit over the new map, arguing that Republicans are trying to change the rules too close to the election and that the changes were made based on racial demographics.

About 60% of voters in the current U.S. House District 9, which includes the whole city of Memphis, are Black.

“This map diminishes Memphis,” said state Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat, during a speech on the state Senate floor, where she pleaded with Republicans to vote down the map. 

“Racism doesn’t become less racist just because it’s called partisan.”

Tennessee finished its legislative session on April 23, but Lee called lawmakers back for a special session after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on April 29 that struck down a provision in the Voting Rights Act requiring states with a history of racial discrimination, like Tennessee, to draw majority-minority districts. 

The Supreme Court, across several judicial rulings led by its Republican-appointed majority, has emphasized that as long as there is a partisan reason to draw new congressional or state legislative maps, it’s legal. 

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. Traditionally, the party in the White House loses seats in midterm elections, and Trump’s approval rating of around 40% is the same as in 2018, when Republicans lost 41 seats and control of the U.S. House.

Tennessee lawmakers joined a nationwide race between both parties to draw as many new gerrymandered U.S. House seats as possible. The redistricting efforts, which started last year at Trump’s behest to the Republican-led legislature in Texas, have spread to at least 9 other states, led by both parties.

State Sen. John Stevens, a Huntingdon Republican, when introducing the new U.S. House map for its final vote in the state Senate, mentioned several Democratic controlled legislatures where the maps have been tilted for “partisan advantage.”

“Tennessee is a conservative state, and this map ensures that our congressional delegation reflects that,” Stevens said. “This is about allowing Tennessee to maximize its partisan advantage.” 

The debate over race and politics has been a key contention throughout the week, as hundreds of protesters descended on the State Capitol to push back against the redistricting effort. 

“They don’t want to see us win, so they cheat,” said Tequila Johnson, the head of the Tennessee Equity Alliance, an organization promoting civic engagement among Black Tennesseans with chapters across the state. “Don’t get it twisted, this isn’t new. This is the same old Tennessee where the Klan was born in Pulaski, Christmas Eve 1865. The same Tennessee that wrote the first Jim Crow law in the country in 1881… this is the same Tennessee that tried to expel two Black lawmakers [in 2023].”

House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Crossville Republican who led the efforts in the state House to get the map through, said multiple times the map was about “politics” and “population.”

“No racial data was used,” said Sexton when he first presented the map.

Sexton’s comments drew an audible laugh from the crowd that attended the various legislative committees this week.

State lawmakers also took the extraordinary step of repealing a state law that prevented them from drawing new districts mid-cycle and allowed them to do so only every 10 years after the U.S. Census.

Republicans last drew a new congressional map in 2022, dividing Nashville in a similar style to Memphis in the new districts, allowing them to flip that Democratic-held seat.

The new map could ensure the state sends no Democrats to Congress next year. As recently as 2020, Tennessee had two Democratic congressmen, one based in Nashville and another in Memphis. 

Campaigns for all of Tennessee’s U.S. House seats began earlier this year, as the candidate filing deadline was March 10. In the old Memphis District 9, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen faced a primary challenge from state Rep. Justin Pearson. 

There were also competitive primaries in Districts 5 and 6.

With the new map going into effect, candidates now have until May 15 to qualify for the new seats. This gives both parties a chance to find new candidates to run or to reconfigure the current slate for each race.

Cassandra Stephenson contributed to this report