Tennessee Governor Bill Lee Signs Map That Carves Up Memphis-Based Democratic District

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed an aggressive new congressional map into law Thursday afternoon, dismantling Memphis-based Tennessee's 9th District and dispersing its overwhelmingly Black, Democratic-leaning voters across three sprawling, Republican-controlled districts that stretch hundreds of miles east toward Nashville and the Cumberland Plateau. The signature came hours after the state House passed the redrawn map 64-25, with three Republicans abstaining, and the state Senate cleared it 25-5 along party lines, ending a tumultuous three-day special session marked by walkouts, ejected protesters and chants of "No Jim Crow!" and "Black votes matter!" inside the Capitol.

The rewrite targets Rep. Steve Cohen, a nine-term Democrat who has represented Memphis since 2007 and who now sees his electorate scattered into districts dominated by rural, white, deeply Republican voters in middle and east Tennessee. Cohen has already announced he will sue, arguing the map is racially discriminatory even after the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais last week sharply curtailed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Tennessee is the first state to enact a new map under the post-Callais regime, and analysts say the partisan lean of the redrawn lines pushes the state's House delegation from 8-1 Republican toward a potential 9-0 GOP sweep in the November midterms.

Lee called the special session within hours of the Supreme Court's ruling, framing the move as a chance to bring "fairness" and "clarity" to district lines that he said had been distorted by prior court orders. Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson told colleagues the map "reflects communities of interest across the state," but Sen. Raumesh Akbari, the Memphis Democrat who led the floor opposition, said on the chamber floor that the map "surgically removes Black political power from a city that has earned it through generations of struggle." Tennessee state troopers ejected dozens of demonstrators from committee rooms during the session, and a handful of Memphis pastors were briefly detained Wednesday after staging a sit-in outside the governor's office suite.

The Tennessee action lands in the middle of a broader Republican redistricting push across the South. Within the past week, governors in Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina have either signed or fast-tracked maps designed to redraw majority-Black districts under the looser standard the Supreme Court announced in its Louisiana ruling. Republican strategists at MAGA Inc. and the National Republican Redistricting Trust have circulated internal memos arguing the cluster of new maps could net the GOP between four and seven additional House seats in 2026 — a shift that, by itself, could decide control of the chamber in a cycle in which Speaker Mike Johnson is defending a four-seat majority.

Democratic leaders responded with both legal action and political alarm. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared together at a Nashville church Thursday night, pledging that Democratic-aligned groups would file federal challenges by Monday in the Western District of Tennessee. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU said they will join Cohen's suit, focusing on intentional discrimination claims that survive even after Callais. Meanwhile, Tennessee's primary calendar is now in flux: the state election commission is meeting next week to decide whether to delay the August 6 congressional primary while litigation plays out, a move that could ripple into ballot deadlines and absentee mailings already underway.