(The Center Square) – The Tennessee Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss a challenge to the state’s redistricting maps is devastating, one lawmaker said.
The court dismissed claims over the state House and Senate maps drawn by the General Assembly after the 2020 Census.
Gibson County resident Gary Wygant failed to prove the House redistricting map violated the Tennessee Constitution because it split counties that didn’t need to be split to meet federal standards, the court said. In a ruling about Davidson County’s four senatorial districts, the court said resident Francie Hunt did not have standing to challenge Davidson County’s four senatorial districts.
Senate Democratic Caucus Chairwoman Sen. London Lamar called the ruling a “breath-taking step backward.”
“This ruling is devastating for anyone who believes constitutional rights actually belong to the people,” London said in a statement. “The court has said, in effect, there are rights promised in the Tennessee Constitution, but enforcement is optional. This is the kind of radical decision that wipes away constitutional protections for the sake of insulating political power.”
Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, told TCS that Tennessee Democrats had been the majority for 150 years, and 2010 was the first year Republicans had a chance to draw the maps.
“And I would argue that we ungerrymandered a large number of districts that had been drawn over that 150-year time period,” Watson said. “We are very sensitive to the issues around the Voting Rights Act and I just reject the argument that we have unfairly gerrymandered the maps.”
Justice Sarah Campbell wrote the majority opinion.
“Although Wygant established that the Legislature could have drawn a more perfect map, he failed to prove that the state’s decision to split Gibson County was not rationally or legitimately related to achieving compliance with federal redistricting requirements,” Campbell said. “The record here overwhelmingly establishes that the Legislature split Gibson County in an effort to comply with the Equal Protection Clause and the VRA (Voting Rights Act).”
Hunt failed to show that “misnumbering” of Davidson County’s Senate district caused her “distinct and palpable” harm, according to the majority opinion.
“Because she lacks standing to challenge the Senate map, her claim is not justiciable and must be dismissed,” the majority said.
Justice Holly Kirby disagreed with the majority’s decision on Hunt’s claim.
“…in denying that Ms. Hunt has standing, Tennessee becomes the first state in the nation to hold that a voter does not have standing to challenge the constitutionality of her own voting district,” Kirby wrote. “The state has cited no case from anywhere in the country – federal or state – holding what the majority now holds: that a voter who has been placed into an unconstitutionally-configured voting district suffered no harm from it and has no standing to challenge it.”
