Nashville, May 8 (AP) Amid raucous protests, Republicans in Tennessee enacted a new US House map that carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis, reshaping it to the GOP's advantage as part of President Donald Trump's strategy to hold on to a slim majority in the November midterm elections.
The final Senate vote unfolded as demonstrators chanted loudly in the galleries and hallways on Thursday. Democratic state Sen. Charlane Oliver stood on her desk in the Senate chamber, holding a banner denouncing the redistricting as a "Jim Crow" effort, then clapping and dancing. Other Democratic senators linked arms in the front of the chamber. Republican leadership quickly adjourned the special session, sending the new map on to Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who promptly signed it into law.
Protesters in the galleries also had disrupted the Republican-led House as it voted for the new map — yelling, chanting and blowing air horns. In the hallways, other shouting protesters were held back by Tennessee state troopers.
Tennessee is the first state to pass new congressional districts since a US Supreme Court ruling last week significantly weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities. But more Southern states could follow. Republicans in Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina also have taken steps toward redistricting. More legal challenges are expected.
The Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with federal law. The high court's decision altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.
Louisiana has postponed its congressional primary to give state lawmakers time to craft a new House map. Legislation awaiting a final vote in Alabama also would upend the state's congressional primaries if courts allow the state to change its US House districts. In South Carolina, meanwhile, Republican state House members released a proposed new congressional map designed to give them a clean sweep of the seats.
The states are the latest to join an already fierce national redistricting battle. Since Trump prodded Texas to redraw its US House districts last year, eight states have adopted new congressional districts. From that, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats while Democrats think they could gain up to 10. But some competitive races mean the parties may not get everything they sought in the November elections.
As a first step to adopting new House districts, Tennessee lawmakers gave final approval Thursday to legislation — quickly signed into law by Lee — that repealed a state law prohibiting mid-decade redistricting. They then passed a bill that would reopen candidate qualifying until May 15 to allow time for new people to enter the US House primaries and existing candidates to switch districts or drop out.
The new House map would break up Tennessee's lone Democratic-held district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis, creating a ripple effect of alterations to districts throughout the western and central parts of the state. The geographically compact 9th District that includes Memphis — currently represented by Steve Cohen, who is white — would stretch a couple hundred miles eastward before reaching north toward the Nashville suburbs.
Unlike in Louisiana — where lawmakers had crafted a second majority-Black district to try to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act — Memphis has long been the base of its own congressional district.
Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton said the new districts were drawn based on population and politics, not racial data.
But Democrats dismissed such assertions.
"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," said state Rep. Justin Pearson, a Black Democrat from Memphis who is running for the US House.
Republican state Sen. John Stevens defended the new districts he sponsored by noting that Democrats in Illinois, Massachusetts and other states also had drawn congressional districts to their advantage.
"This bill represents Tennessee's attempt to maximize our partisan advantage," he said.
It does so at the expense of both Memphis residents and democracy, said Sen. London Lamar, a Democrat from Memphis.
"You cannot take a majority Black city, fracture its voting power and then tell us race has nothing to do with it," she said.
Democrats noted that the state Supreme Court in April 2022 rejected a challenge to the current congressional map, finding it was too close to the election to make changes. This year, there's even less time before the Aug. 6 primary, raising the potential of confusion for both candidates and voters, Democrats said.
Audience members watching an Alabama legislative committee Thursday erupted in shouts of "shame" after Republican lawmakers advanced legislation to authorise special primaries if the state can put a new congressional map in place for the November midterms.
Alabama has asked federal judges to lift an order requiring the state to have a second district where Black voters are the majority or close to it. That district gave rise to the election of Rep. Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat, in 2024.
Republicans instead want to put in place a map lawmakers drew in 2023 — which was rejected by a federal court — that could allow them to reclaim Figures' district. Black residents currently make up about 48 per cent of the district's voting-age population. That would drop to about 39 per cent under the 2023 map. Republicans hope the federal courts will see the case differently in the wake of the Supreme Court's Louisiana decision.
If a court grants Alabama's request, the legislation under consideration would ignore the May 19 primary results for congressional seats and direct the governor to schedule a new primary under the revised districts. The House passed the legislation on a party-line vote Wednesday. A final Senate vote is expected Friday.
Addressing a Senate committee on Thursday, Figures said his concern isn't for himself but for the people who fought for decades "to have a voice in what government looks like".
A proposed new US House map was distributed Thursday on the South Carolina House floor, where members huddled around desks to review it.
The proposal would take Democratic US Rep. Jim Clyburn out of the 6th District he has represented since 1992. His district currently is made up of nearly 50 per cent Black voters and provided a greater than 60 per cent vote for Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024 presidential election. The proposal would split it into four different districts.
The proposed map also would split the Democratic stronghold of Columbia and its redder suburbs into four different districts.
The South Carolina House on Wednesday approved a resolution giving lawmakers permission to return after the May 14 end of the regular work to continue consideration of a redistricting plan. But that also would require a two-thirds vote of the Senate.
The state's primary elections are June 9. (AP) DIV
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