(The Center Square) – A three-judge panel said Thursday it would rule quickly on a challenge to Tennessee’s redrawn congressional districts approved by state lawmakers on May 7.
The NAACP and others are suing state officials over the new map, which splits Memphis and Shelby County into three districts.
Anthony Ashton, an attorney with the NAACP, said the General Assembly went beyond what Gov. Bill Lee outlined in his proclamation calling for a special session.
Lawmakers repealed a law that would have barred lawmakers from reapportioning districts between apportionments, which occurs after the U.S. Census Counts are released. The General Assembly also changed the timeline for qualifying for Tennessee’s nine congressional districts and removed a residency requirement for congressional candidates.
The changes led some candidates to run in other districts. U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who has represented Memphis since 2007, announced he would not run again. Cohen was the only Democrat of the state’s nine members in Congress.
Davidson County Chancellor Anne Martin said claims made by the state that the new laws allow candidates to specify which districts they want to represent are not about the numbers. Plaintiff DeVante Hill, who was running in the old 9th District, is now running in the 5th District.
“And his argument is that when you plan to run, you do things like figure out where your votes are, what you have to spend money to get those voters to support you, you know what the makeup is of the district,” Martin said. “And his argument is, by scrambling the map at this time, you can call it five or nine or six or whatever you want, it’s not the one he was running in, and the analysis he did as a candidate about his chances and so forth has now been upended.”
Tossing out the new map and reverting to the old one would cause confusion, said Taylor Meehan, an attorney with the Arlington, Va., law firm Consovoy McCarthy. Meehan argued the case for the state.
Notice requirements to voters in new districts are on their way, which voids part of the NAACP’s challenge that the state suspended the requirement, Meehan said. The state is also notifying voters online and by mail.
“Davidson County, as large as it is, and with as many changes as Davidson County will see, is still intending to mail out notices by the first week in July,” Meehan said. “Likewise, we anticipate additional counties will be mailing notices as early as next week.”
Ashton said the plaintiffs are looking for “fairness and consistency.”
“Essentially, what we’re being fed, what we’re being told is that the General Assembly created a crisis by acting as it did, and because it created that crisis, we should all just live with it,” Ashton said. “That’s not what the law is. The law doesn’t say if you do something wrong, and if the thing you do wrong is big enough, you get away with it.”
State Republicans said the changes were made to give Republicans an edge in Congress. Democrats said the redrawn maps were intended to dilute Black voting power in the Memphis area.
The new congressional districts are also being challenged in three other federal court lawsuits. No decisions have been made in cases filed by the Tennessee Democratic Party, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and the League of Women Voters. A judge has consolidated the three lawsuits.
