A three-judge state panel on Tuesday dismissed a legal challenge to Tennessee’s redrawn congressional maps brought by the state chapter of the NAACP, its president, a state lawmaker, and a congressional candidate.
The unanimous decision by the court keeps intact, for now, a GOP-led redistricting process that carved majority-Black Memphis into three separate voting districts for the first time in 50 years in an effort to dismantle Tennessee’s sole Democratic-leaning district.
“We are disappointed in the panel’s decision but we remain determined to stand up for voters in Tennessee,” Kristen Clarke, NAACP general counsel said in a statement. “The NAACP will continue to use every available tool to ensure that every voter in Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee has an equal voice in the democratic process.”
Three other legal challenges, filed in federal court, remain ongoing. Each of them seeks to halt the maps from remaining in effect ahead of the Aug. 6 Tennessee primary.
In one of these federal challenges, a judge on Tuesday denied a request by the ACLU of Tennessee to temporarily block the map. The ACLU suit alleges intentional racial discrimination and First Amendment retaliation against Black voters in the redrawn district lines.
The three-judge state panel, appointed by the Tennessee Supreme Court, concluded that both Gov. Bill Lee and the General Assembly are protected by sovereign immunity and that three of the four plaintiffs “did not establish a distinct and palpable injury.” The three dismissed plaintiffs include the NAACP Tennessee State Conference, its president, Gloria Sweet-Love and state Rep. Jesse Chism, a Democrat representing portions of Memphis who serves as chair of the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators.
That left only Devante Hill, a congressional candidate, as a plaintiff and Secretary of State Tre Hargett and Elections Coordinator Mark Goins as defendants in the lawsuit.
Having whittled down the parties in the lawsuit, the panel of judges then concluded Hill’s claims against state election officials were “without merit.”
“Petitioners’ approach would have the Judicial Branch micromanaging its coequal Legislative Branch and substituting this Court’s judgment in place of the General Assembly’s … into whether a specific action was actually necessary to accomplish a particular goal or what the best methods of carrying out congressional elections are,” the decision said.
“This, the Court should not do. Moreover, it is neither equipped nor tasked to do so,” they wrote.
The NAACP suit alleged the process the governor and the General Assembly undertook a redistricting process that ran afoul of state law and the Tennessee Constitution.
When Lee formally called for a special session to take up redistricting, he did not specify that its purpose would include repealing or suspending a Tennessee law prohibiting mid-decade redistricting in violation of state law and the state constitution, the lawsuit argued. Republican lawmakers ultimately voted to nullify that legislation and Lee signed it into law before a final vote on the newly drawn map.
The suit also challenged a provision that waived residency requirements for candidates in the newly drawn districts and a requirement to notify voters of district changes via mail.
The judges concluded the language in the governor’s proclamation, which included directing the General Assembly make “statutory changes that are necessary” in the special session called to redraw the state’s congressional map, broadly encompassed the actions lawmakers ultimately undertook.
The three remaining federal challenges will be heard before a three-judge federal panel.
They include a second challenge brought by the NAACP Tennessee State Conference, joined by the League of Women Voters of Tennessee, that alleges the redrawn maps discriminate against Black voters in Memphis. A third challenge, brought by Democratic candidates and voters, is also expected to be heard by the panel.
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.