NASHVILLE, Tenn. — As civil rights advocates protest, Republican lawmakers in several Southern states are seizing on the opportunity afforded by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to redraw congressional districts ahead of the November midterm elections.
Protesters marched up to Tennessee’s Capitol on Tuesday as a special legislative session began that could carve up a majority-Black district in Memphis. In Alabama, meanwhile, Republican lawmakers pressed ahead with a plan that could upend the state’s congressional primaries. And South Carolina officials considered whether to join the redistricting movement.
Louisiana lawmakers also are making plans for new U.S. House districts after the Supreme Court last week struck down the state’s current map. The high court’s ruling said Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The ruling significantly altered a decades-old understanding of the law, giving Republicans in various states grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.
It could lessen congressional representation for Black Americans and other minorities, reversing decades of gains in minority voting rights.
President Donald Trump has been encouraging more states to join in redistricting as Republicans seek to hold on to their narrow House majority in this year’s elections.
Eight states already have adopted new U.S. districts ahead of the midterms. From that, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats in five states, while Democrats think they could gain up to 10 seats from new districts in three other states. But some of the new districts could be competitive in November, meaning the parties may not get all they sought.
The newly proposed redistricting in Southern states could add to the Republicans’ tally.
Tennessee plan targets Memphis district
Republican Gov. Bill Lee called Tennessee lawmakers into a special session to consider a plan urged by Trump that could break up the state’s lone Democratic-held U.S. House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis.
As the Senate began work, shouts of “shame, shame, shame” could be heard inside the chamber from protesters gathered in the hallways.
At a rally earlier Tuesday, state Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis, who is running for Congress, denounced the Republican plan as a “racist redistricting.”
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who is white, said the Memphis-based district he represents predates the Voting Rights Act.
“Memphis has been a majority black district historically, because that is where the population is,” he said. “It’s a district that is compact, and it has community purpose.”
Martin Luther King III sent a letter to Tennessee legislative leaders expressing “grave concern” about the plan to divide Memphis’ congressional representation.
“This decision undermines the work that my father, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., carried out to help secure passage of the Voting Rights Act,” he wrote, noting that his father was assassinated in Memphis.
The candidate qualifying period in Tennessee ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6.
Alabama looks at setting a new primary
Alabama legislative committees swiftly advanced legislation Tuesday that would allow a special congressional primary, if the Supreme Court clears the way for the state to change its U.S. House districts.
In light of the court’s ruling on Louisiana’s districts, Alabama officials have asked the high court to set aside a judicial order to use a U.S. House map that includes two districts with a substantial number of Black voters and instead let the state revert to a map passed in 2023 by Republican lawmakers. That map could help the GOP win at least one of those two seats currently held by Democrats.
Alabama’s primaries are scheduled for May 19. If the Supreme Court grants the state’s request after or too close to the primary, the legislation under consideration would ignore the results of that primary and direct the governor to schedule a new primary under the revised districts.
“This is an opportunity for the voters to vote in the districts drawn by legislators in 2023,” said Republican state Rep. Chris Pringle, the bill’s sponsor.
During a House committee hearing, several Black residents urged lawmakers not to change the current congressional districts.
“Representation matters – not just politically but in access, in power and in who gets to be heard,” said Eliza Jane Franklin, of rural Barbour County.
Democrats denounced legislation as a Republican power grab that harkens back to the state’s shameful history of denying Black residents equal rights and representation.
Republicans are “working to secure an electoral victory by taking Alabama back to the Jim Crow era, and we won’t go back,” Democratic U.S. Rep Terri Sewell told a crowd gathered outside the Alabama Statehouse.
Advocates urge Louisiana voters to cast ballots
After last week’s Supreme Court decision, Louisiana moved to delay its May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts.
Louisiana state Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican who chairs a Senate committee tasked with redistricting, told The Associated Press that his committee plans to hold a public hearing Friday. Kleinpeter said lawmakers are still weighing their options, including bills that would eliminate one or both of the state’s two majority-Black Congressional districts.
Democrats and civil rights groups have filed several lawsuits challenging the suspension of Louisiana’s congressional primary. They are encouraging people in Louisiana – where early voting already is underway – to go ahead and cast votes in the congressional primaries in case courts later allow them to be counted.
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Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri. Associated Press writers Jack Brook in New Orleans, Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
