Tennessee GOP Erases State’s Last Democratic, Black-Majority Seat in Shameless Power Grab

Election-rigging season is in full swing for Tennessee Republicans, and on Thursday, Gov. Mike Lee (R) signed into law a new congressional map that will effectively erase the last Democratic, majority-Black district, in a move that some are calling “Jim Crow on steroids.” The legislation, which looks a whole lot like racial gerrymandering, comes a whole week after the Supreme Court hollowed out the last of the Voting Rights Act… removing the last protections to prevent racial gerrymandering. 

The new map will cut up Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, which is currently held by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), dividing Memphis into three districts, and Nashville into five. It comes as a pathetic toady-up to Trump, who Truth Social’ed late last month that he was working with Gov. Lee “to correct the unconstitutional flaw in the Congressional Maps of the Great State of Tennessee”—a day after the SCOTUS ruling. Nothing terrifying about that! 

Gov. Lee called for a legislature special session a day later, which began Tuesday, and the GOP supermajority legislature finished on Thursday by repealing a 1972 law that prohibits re-districting in the middle of a decade—or in non-census years—before immediately voting to then carve out the state’s lone Democrat seat. (There are nine seats in the delegation in total.) The party also snuck through some extra voter-suppression legislation on top of all this, and got rid of legislation that requires the government to tell voters when their congressional redistricts are redrawn, as well as their updated voting areas, despite the fact that hundreds of voters’ voting areas could have been impacted by the changes. Per the bill’s text, this—rather crucial—information will now only have to be declared on an “official website, if one exists.” 

⚡️ WATCH — JUST NOW — 99% white Tennessee House Republicans pass a racist 9-0 map stripping majority Black Memphis of congressional representation

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— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) May 7, 2026 at 6:03 PM

 

Because no legislative attack on democracy usually goes unpunished, for all of Tuesday through Thursday, hundreds of protesters marched into the state Capitol, holding signs that said, “Hands off Memphis”; “No new maps”; and “Memphis is Black, there’s no denying that.” Standing among protesters, Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) also burned a paper printout of the Confederate flag. 

The legislative session itself had various flashpoints, like when Jones told House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) the GOP supermajority was looking a lot like the Ku Klux Klan. (When Jones said the House was using Jim Crow rules, Lamberth apparently giggled.) The final vote was particularly chaotic, as Democratic senators linked arms on the floor and Sen. Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville) held up a white sheet saying “No Jim Crow 2.0 Stop the Steal.” The sheet was torn from her hands by security, and Oliver clapped and stomped in protest as the Senate advanced the bill, a move that was met with laughter from other GOP state lawmakers.

The bill passed the House 64-25, with three Republicans abstaining, and the Senate passed it 25-5, mostly along party lines. 

“Trump knows he HAS TO rig the game to keep his majority in November,” Cohen, who has vowed to take legal action against the new map, tweeted on Thursday. “And the TN GOP was willing to go along with it. It’s shameful.”