ACLU sues to block redrawn Tennessee congressional map that breaks up Memphis

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. 

This marks the third lawsuit to challenge the redrawn map, which eliminated the state’s only majority-Democrat, majority-Black U.S. House district. On Thursday, the NAACP Tennessee Conference sued in state court. The Tennessee Democratic Party, four Democratic congressional candidates and four voters are together seeking to halt the map’s use in the 2026 election in a separate federal case.

The ACLU’s lawsuit seeks to stop the map from taking effect before the August primary election. 

“Black voters in Memphis did exactly what the Constitution empowers every American to do, which is to choose their representative,” ACLU of Tennessee Executive Director Miriam Nemeth said in a news release. “The legislature’s response was an effort to ensure that those votes never carry the same weight again. The law has a name for this, and it’s not redistricting, it is textbook First Amendment retaliation. And it is, at its heart, racism.”

The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of three Memphis voters, the Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis, the Memphis A. Philip Randolph Institute and the Equity Alliance.

Gov. Bill Lee called a special legislative session to draw new U.S. House districts at President Donald Trump’s instruction after a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision weakened part of the Voting Rights Act. Members of the state legislature’s Republican supermajority repealed a long-standing Tennessee law that forbade mid-decade redistricting, passed the new map and approved new rules for the upcoming 2026 election in the span of three days.

Sen. John Stevens, a Huntington Republican and the new map’s state Senate sponsor, repeatedly said the districts were drawn to “maximize partisan advantage.”

Secretary of State Tre Hargett, Elections Coordinator Mark Goins and the members of the Tennessee Election Commission are named as defendants. Hargett’s office, which houses the Division of Elections, declined to comment on pending litigation.

The ACLU’s lawsuit says that process was “unprecedented and suspect,” noting that this marks the first time in modern history that the Tennessee General Assembly redistricted mid-decade. The map’s sponsors refused to answer “even basic questions about their own legislation or Tennessee’s demographics, such as who drew the map, what data was used, and whether Memphis was majority Black,” the lawsuit states. 

Before the Senate’s final vote on the map, Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat, asked Stevens, who attended law school at the University of Memphis, if he was aware that Memphis’ population is predominantly Black.

“I am not,” he said.

The lawsuit argues that the redistricting process is part of a pattern in the Tennessee Legislature, alleging “discriminatory motive” is clear in recent history. 

The filing points to the 2017 removal of $250,000 intended for Memphis’ bicentennial celebration after the city bypassed the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act by selling two parks so Confederate statues could be removed, the expulsion of two Black lawmakers in 2023, a 2026 law authorizing the takeover of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, and another 2026 law authorizing the state’s Attorney General to request audits from the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office and seek the replacement of the county’s elected district attorney, among other examples.

“Repeated, recent efforts by the White-dominated political faction controlling the General Assembly to target the Black-majority City of Memphis and strip Memphis of the ability to elect its own officials and set local policy, which leaders of the White-dominated political faction advanced based on anti-Black stereotypes,” the lawsuit states.

The plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgement that the May 2026 congressional map was passed with “discriminatory purpose in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments” and “unlawful retaliation in violation of the First Amendment.” The 2022 congressional map should remain in effect for the 2026 election, the lawsuit says.
ACLU Lawsuit May 11 2026