Tennessee Republicans release new congressional map splitting Memphis into three districts

Tennessee Republicans on Wednesday unveiled a proposed congressional map that would carve Memphis and Shelby County into three separate districts, a move that could eliminate the state's only remaining Democrat-held House seat and hand the GOP a clean sweep of Tennessee's congressional delegation.

The proposal follows last week's Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Louisiana congressional map containing two majority-Black districts, finding that race served as the primary factor in drawing those boundaries. Tennessee lawmakers moved fast. They could vote on the new map as soon as Thursday, with the state's congressional primary currently set for August 6.

If signed into law, the map would redraw the 9th Congressional District, a majority-Black seat centered on Memphis that Rep. Steve Cohen, a white Democrat, has held since 2007. Under the new boundaries, that district would stretch farther east along Tennessee's border with Mississippi, while other new districts would combine portions of Memphis with more rural, Republican-leaning communities. One district would extend along Tennessee's western border before reaching into Williamson County outside Nashville.

Republicans frame the map as legally sound

Speaker Cameron Sexton defended the plan in a statement, pointing directly to the Supreme Court's reasoning. As Just The News reported, Sexton framed the effort as consistent with a colorblind approach to redistricting:

"The Supreme Court has opined that redistricting, like the judicial system, should be colorblind, the decision indicated states like Tennessee can redistrict based on partisan politics. Tennessee's redistricting will reduce the risk of future legal challenges while promoting sound and strategic conservatism."

That language matters. Sexton is drawing a clear line: the map is built on partisan grounds, not racial ones. The Supreme Court's Louisiana ruling gave Republican-led states an opening to redraw maps so long as race is not the dominant factor, and Tennessee's GOP leadership is walking through that door with both eyes open.

Tennessee's current congressional delegation splits 8-1 in favor of Republicans. The new map could make it 9-0. Democrats hold a supermajority deficit in the Tennessee General Assembly, which means they lack the votes to block the proposal on the floor.

Democrats and civil rights groups push back

Democrats and Black leaders in the state say the plan would weaken the voting power of Tennessee's lone majority-Black congressional district. State Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat, addressed Republican colleagues on Tuesday:

"History will not look back kindly on you when you had an opportunity to do what was right, and you chose to do something else."

State Rep. Justin J. Pearson, who is currently challenging Cohen in a Democratic primary for the 9th District seat, joined protests against the map that same day. The broader fight over redistricting power between the two parties has intensified in recent months, and Tennessee is now the sharpest flashpoint.

Sekou Franklin, a political science professor at Middle Tennessee State University and part of the Tennessee NAACP, called the proposal "Black vote dilution at an industrial scale," according to Breitbart.

Legal challenges are expected if the map is approved and signed by Gov. Bill Lee. But the Supreme Court's recent ruling has shifted the legal landscape significantly. For years, the Voting Rights Act's Section 2 was read broadly enough to require the creation and preservation of majority-minority districts. The Louisiana decision narrowed that interpretation, and Republican mapmakers across the South are recalibrating accordingly.

Trump pushed Tennessee to move quickly

President Donald Trump reportedly spoke directly with Gov. Lee after the Supreme Court ruling to encourage the state to act fast on a new congressional map. The Washington Examiner reported that Trump and Lee discussed redrawing the state's maps to give Republicans "one extra seat."

That conversation fits a pattern. Last summer, Trump urged Republican-led states to redraw their congressional maps as the party seeks to protect and expand its narrow House majority heading into the 2026 midterm elections. The president has been pressing the case for stronger Republican positioning on election rules and structures well ahead of the next cycle.

Tennessee is not acting alone. The redistricting wave now extends across multiple Southern states. Louisiana delayed its House primaries last week to give lawmakers time to draft a new map after the Supreme Court struck down its existing one. Alabama is attempting to lift a court order blocking new maps before the 2030 census. South Carolina lawmakers face pressure from conservatives to redraw their districts. And Florida legislators are debating a proposal that could add up to four Republican seats.

AP News reported that the effort could lessen congressional representation for Black Americans and other minorities, framing it as a reversal of decades of gains in minority voting rights. Civil rights advocates have made that argument central to their opposition.

The real question: partisan or racial?

The legal and political fight ahead will turn on a single distinction, whether these maps are drawn along partisan lines or racial ones. The Supreme Court has long held that partisan gerrymandering, while often ugly, is constitutionally permissible. Racial gerrymandering is not.

Tennessee Republicans are betting they can thread that needle. The state's GOP supermajority gives them the legislative muscle to pass the map. The Supreme Court's fresh precedent gives them legal cover. And the political incentive is obvious: flipping the 9th District would erase the last Democratic foothold in Tennessee's congressional delegation.

Democrats, for their part, will argue that splitting a majority-Black district in Memphis cannot be separated from race, regardless of what the mapmakers say their intent was. That argument will almost certainly end up in court. The broader clash between the parties over election rules and representation shows no signs of cooling.

But there is a basic reality that Democrats and their allies in the media tend to skip past. The Supreme Court did not invent partisan redistricting. Both parties have drawn maps to maximize their own advantage for as long as maps have existed. Democrats did it in Illinois. They did it in Maryland. They did it in New York, until courts stopped them. The difference now is that Republicans in the South have a fresh ruling that limits how far the Voting Rights Act can be stretched to require race-conscious mapmaking.

That is not lawlessness. It is the law as the Supreme Court has now stated it.

Tennessee's map will face scrutiny, and it should. Every redistricting plan in the country should be tested against constitutional standards. But the outrage from Democrats rings hollow when their own party has spent decades drawing maps with precisely the same goal, maximizing seats, and calling it good governance.

The legal challenges from Democrats on election-related matters have become so routine they function less as genuine constitutional claims and more as a political delay tactic. Whether that strategy works in Tennessee will depend on the courts. Whether it works at the ballot box will depend on voters.

What comes next

If Tennessee lawmakers vote Thursday and Gov. Lee signs the bill, the new map would take effect ahead of the August 6 primary. That timeline is tight, and it will give opponents a narrow window to seek an injunction.

The stakes extend well beyond Memphis. Republicans hold the U.S. House by a slim margin. Every seat matters. Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana together represent a redistricting effort that could shift the balance of power in Washington before a single vote is cast in November 2026.

Democrats will call it a power grab. Republicans will call it compliance with the Supreme Court. The courts will sort it out. But the underlying principle is straightforward: if the Constitution permits partisan mapmaking, then the party with the votes and the legal authority has every right to use both.

The left spent years demanding that courts intervene in redistricting. Now a court has, and they don't like the result. That's not a constitutional crisis. That's politics.