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Republican lawmakers in several Southern states moved quickly to redraw U.S. House districts after a Supreme Court ruling last week, as civil rights advocates protested the changes and warned they could reduce minority voting power in the run-up to November midterm elections. The Supreme Court’s decision struck down Louisiana’s map for relying too heavily on race in creating a second Black-majority House district while attempting to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The ruling “significantly altered” how states understand their obligations under the law, giving Republicans in multiple states grounds to try to eliminate certain majority-Black districts.
In Tennessee, protesters marched up to the state Capitol on Tuesday as a special legislative session began that could carve up the majority-Black Memphis district. Republican Gov. Bill Lee called the lawmakers into the session, saying it was meant to consider a plan urged by President Donald Trump that could break up the state’s lone Democratic-held U.S. House district. In the chamber, protesters’ shouts of “shame, shame, shame” carried through the hallways, and Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Black Democrat from Memphis, called the redistricting “an act of hate.”
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 and represents the Memphis-based district he says predates the Voting Rights Act, said the Memphis district has long been majority-Black because “that is where the population is,” and he described it as a district “that is compact, and it has community purpose.”
Martin Luther King III, who described the city’s representation as tied to his father’s work, sent a letter to Tennessee legislative leaders expressing “grave concern” about the proposal to divide Memphis’ congressional representation. In the letter, he wrote that the decision undermines what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. carried out to help secure passage of the Voting Rights Act, and he noted his father was assassinated in Memphis. Tennessee’s candidate qualifying period ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6.
State House and Senate leaders in Alabama also advanced legislation on Tuesday to enable a special congressional primary if the Supreme Court clears the way for district changes. The legislation comes as Alabama officials asked the high court to set aside a judicial order requiring Alabama 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. Alabama’s primaries are scheduled for May 19, and the measure under consideration would ignore the results of that primary if the Supreme Court grants the state’s request too close to the election, directing the governor to schedule a new primary under revised districts.
“We don’t know if we have the votes in the House,” Republican Speaker Murrell Smith said in Tennessee, while in Alabama a bill sponsor said the proposal was meant to ensure voters choose from districts drawn by legislators. In Alabama, Republican state Rep. Chris Pringle, the sponsor, said, “This is an opportunity for the voters to vote in the districts drawn by legislators in 2023.” During a House committee hearing, several Black residents urged lawmakers not to change the congressional districts. Eliza Jane Franklin, of rural Barbour County, said, “Representation matters — not just politically but in access, in power and in who gets to be heard.”
Democrats denounced the Alabama legislation as a Republican power grab that echoes the state’s history of denying Black residents equal rights and representation. Democratic U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell told a crowd outside the Alabama Statehouse, “Republicans are ‘working to secure an electoral victory by taking Alabama back to the Jim Crow era, and we won’t go back,’” as the debate over potential timetable changes played out.
In South Carolina, Republican leaders said Tuesday they plan to pursue redistricting changes that would eliminate a House district held by longtime Black Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn. Clyburn has represented South Carolina’s 6th Congressional District since it was redrawn in 1992 to favor minority voters, and he is running for an 18th term. Leaders said the effort would need a two-thirds vote in each chamber, and it could come up as soon as Wednesday, with a requirement that enough Republicans are on board for the approach to succeed.
In Louisiana, lawmakers planned for new U.S. House districts after the Supreme Court’s decision last week struck down the state’s map. Louisiana’s ruling came because the high court said Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district under the Voting Rights Act framework. After the Supreme Court decision, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry postponed Louisiana’s May 16 congressional primary and said it was to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts. State Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican, said the redistricting committee he leads plans to hold a public hearing Friday.
Louisiana voters had already returned absentee ballots before the postponement took effect, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. The office said that by last Thursday, voters had sent in more than 41,000 completed absentee ballots, about one-third of all absentee ballots sent out. It also said around 19,000 were from registered Democrats and about 17,000 were from registered Republicans. Democrats and civil rights groups have filed lawsuits challenging the suspension of Louisiana’s congressional primary.