The NAACP on Thursday filed an emergency petition to block Tennessee’s attempt to remove the only majority Black congressional district in the state, which the organization argues violates the state constitution.
Filed in Davidson County Chancery Court, the emergency petition urged Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) and the state legislature to not enact the new congressional map. The Volunteer State’s redrawn Republican-friendly map carves up the state’s only majority-Black district and threatens the lone Democrat in the state’s nine-member delegation.
“It is a direct attack on our democracy and our Constitution to dismantle majority-Black districts. A democracy without Black representation is not a democracy,” NAACP general counsel Kristen Clarke said in a statement. “Black communities in Tennessee have been silenced and brutalized for centuries. This is where the KKK was born and where [Martin Luther King Jr.] was assassinated. Black residents were faced with racial violence and legal suppression every single day.”
NAACP President of the Tennessee Conference Gloria Sweet-Love called the new map “unlawful.”
“There is a long history and contemporary pattern of unfair redistricting practices in rural West Tennessee that have harmed Black political representation,” Sweet-Love said in the statement. “We will stand up to make sure that Black voters retain their voting power.”
Lee signed the new map into law after the GOP-friendly bill passed through the state Senate and House earlier on Thursday. The new map splits up Rep. Steve Cohen’s (D-Tenn.) Memphis-based 9th Congressional District, Tennessee’s only majority Black district, into three districts.
Tennessee Republicans pushed the new map through after the Supreme Court called a new congressional map in Louisiana that gave it a second majority-Black district an unconstitutional gerrymander.
“The Supreme Court has opined that redistricting, like the judicial system, should be color-blind,” Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) wrote in a post on the social platform X on Wednesday. “The decision indicated states can redistrict based off partisan politics.”
Cohen on Thursday vowed legal action against the new map. At least one Republican announced he will challenge Cohen for his seat, which he has held since 2007.
“Trump knows he HAS TO rig the game to keep his majority in November,” Cohen said on social media. “And the TN GOP was willing to go along with it. It’s shameful. Next stop is the courts.”
Cohen on Wednesday testified to lawmakers to convince them on why having a Democratic congressional seat benefits Tennessee.
He warned that redrawing the state’s congressional map per President Trump’s request to red states in order to maintain Republican control of Congress is akin to “giving up the values of the state… for one man who is president of the United States for two more years and maybe a little bit for the governor, who’s going to be governor for a little less than a year.”
