A federal appeals court dismissed a challenge to Tennessee’s new U.S. Congressional map, ruling lawmakers gerrymandered the districts but along political, not racial, motivations, which is permissible under the law.
The ruling by three judges on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals means the state’s U.S. House map—drawn in 2022 to split Nashville into three districts, giving Republicans control of eight of the state’s nine congressional seats—will likely remain in place until 2032.
“The complaint alleges facts consistent with a racial gerrymander,” the ruling said. “But the facts are also consistent with a political gerrymander.”
The judges left open the possibility that the NAACP, which filed the suit, could challenge the ruling based on a new U.S. Supreme Court precedent set in a South Carolina redistricting case. But the precedent requires the NAACP to prove that race, not politics, drove the redistricting.
Before state Republicans’ 2022 map, Democrats controlled two of the nine congressional seats: one seat covering all of Nashville and another in Memphis.
Republicans chose to eliminate the Nashville district, splitting the city’s predominantly Democratic population across three seats. This allowed Republicans to win all three, leaving Nashville without a U.S. House member who lives in the city.
Tennessee’s non-white population, which ranges between 16% and 19%, is low enough that only one congressional district must be drawn as majority-minority to comply with the law. But population trends indicate Tennessee could gain a 10th U.S. House seat in 2032, potentially altering the state’s congressional dynamics.
A second seat might require there to be two majority-minority districts creating a similar situation to redistricting in Alabama last year, where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the state’s high minority population required a less favorable political gerrymander to Republicans if they are still in power.
The ruling
The article in this post was originally published on Tennessee Lookout and parts of it are included here under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0
