Supreme Court Decision Prompts Last-Minute Redistricting Efforts by GOP in Alabama and Tennessee

Black leaders warned that the Supreme Court’s rollback of the Voting Rights Act would unleash aggressive redistricting. And now Republicans in Alabama and Tennessee are doing just that, redrawing maps in ways that hit Black communities hardest.

The two Republican-controlled states revealed new efforts in response to the high court’s decision. We previously told you the court’s conservative majority voted to essentially gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which acted as a check against efforts to manipulate the Black vote for political gain. Black voters have historically been disproportionately disenfranchised.

Now, these concerns have taken a new shape after President Donald Trump’s plan to secure more GOP seats in Congress has reached yet another turn.

Tennessee Republicans hope to advance a new round of redistricting that critics say would dilute Black voting strength and erode representation, as WZTV reported. Gov. Bill Lee has called a special session on Tuesday (May 5) for lawmakers to take up the proposed maps.

As it stands now, the state’s only Democrat-held congressional seat is in the city of Memphis, which, according to Census data, has a Black population of more than 60%, but with the proposed map, Republicans have the potential to control all nine districts in Congress.

Rep. Jesse Chism, chairman of the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators, told WKRN that he’s most concerned about the speed of the new proposal. “It does create a huge red flag. Going straight into a special session to rush this, I think, is a bad idea,” he said. “It is so important because of diluting the votes of people, particularly in Memphis … I think it’s harmful for democracy and harmful for people who are trying to have their voices heard.”

Tennessee had previously been required to draw at least one of its nine congressional districts as a majority-minority district, but that landscape shifted after a Supreme Court ruling. The proposed maps arrive just months before the state’s August primaries– and after candidate qualifying deadlines have already passed, NPR reported.

Alabama is yet another state jumping on board with the unprecedented GOP gerrymandering effort. There, lawmakers took initial votes Tuesday (May 5) to change congressional and state senate district maps, despite absentee votes having already been cast in the ongoing primary races. Republicans, with support from Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, hope to wipe out at least one of two districts currently represented by Black Democrats.

The move comes after a court ordered the state to keep its current map until the 2030 Census, according to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Now, Gov. Ivey is hoping the Supreme Court ruling weakening Section 2 will invalidate the original order.

“What this Legislature continues to do is stick their middle finger to the courts once again, over and over again, telling the courts, ‘We don’t care what it is that you rule, we’re going to do what we want to do,’” Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton said Monday (May 4), according to the Alabama Reflector. “That’s what this legislation is saying.”

With more than half of the nation’s Black population concentrated in the South, the stakes of redistricting fights in the region are especially high. Local leaders have sharply criticized Republican officials, accusing them of undermining Black voting strength. Even so, the pushback has done little to slow GOP-led efforts to redraw district lines.

Meanwhile, Democrats in states such as Virginia and California are still celebrating gains from their own recent redistricting outcomes.