Judges Dismiss Tennessee Lawsuit Alleging Racial Gerrymandering

A panel of judges in Tennessee dismissed a lawsuit this week that accused the state’s House and Senate of racial gerrymandering.
On Wednesday, the Associated Press (AP) reported that a panel of judges issued a ruling which dismissed the lawsuit and said, “In sum, the complaint alleges facts that are consistent with a racial gerrymander.”
“But the facts are also consistent with a political gerrymander,” the ruling added.
The lawsuit in question argued against a congressional redistricting map from 2022 that helped Republicans flip a seat in the Democratic-leaning city of Nashville. The map prompted criticism from some who claimed that it was created to diminish the power of Black communities in one of the few Democratic strongholds in Tennessee.
The lawsuit also targeted state Senate District 31, which covers parts of majority-Black Shelby County, including Memphis. It argued that the new district maps increased the white voting-age population. A Republican currently holds the seat there.
However, the ruling on Wednesday, which was written by a panel of three judges, said that the likely “straightforward explanation” for the congressional redistricting map was “naked partisanship” by the state’s Republican majority.
In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that partisan gerrymandering disputes involving congressional and legislative districts fall outside its jurisdiction, leaving such claims to state courts under their respective constitutions.
More recently, the court upheld South Carolina’s congressional map in a 6-3 ruling, determining that the state legislature did not rely on race when redrawing districts following the 2020 Census.
The lawsuit filed against the congressional redistricting map was led by the Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP, the African American Clergy Collective of Tennessee, the Equity Alliance and the League of Women Voters of Tennessee. Several other Tennessee voters were also involved in the lawsuit, including former Democratic State Senator Brenda Gilmore.
Following the release of the redistricting map, Democratic Representative Jim Cooper, who represented Nashville, said he was not planning to seek reelection as he didn’t believe he’d have success in the new mapping.
Republican Representative Andy Ogles ultimately went on to win his first term in the district left open by Cooper.
In the Tennessee State House, there are currently eight Republican members and just one Democratic member, Representative Steve Cohen, who represents Memphis.
The lawsuit against the map argued that three of the “candidates of choice” in Nashville lost their congressional bids in 2022. However, the judges argued that the lawsuit needed to “do more than plausibly allege” that Tennessee lawmakers were aware their GOP-favored map would disadvantage voters supporting Democratic candidates, including the higher proportion of minority voters who typically back those candidates.