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A federal judicial panel on Thursday allowed Tennessee to use a new congressional map that divides a majority-Black district in Memphis, rejecting an effort to block the plan ahead of the state’s primary elections in August.
A three-judge panel declined to issue a preliminary injunction against the new map, clearing the way for the new congressional boundaries and a win for Republicans as the party seeks to protect its fragile majority in the House.
President Trump called on Republican-led states to redraw their maps following a landmark Supreme Court ruling weakening the Voting Rights Act and striking down Louisiana’s majority-Black congressional district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
After the ruling, Tennessee revisited its congressional districts and sought to redraw its boundaries, prompting opponents to challenge a map approved by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature in May.
Opponents argued Republican lawmakers were motivated at least in part by racial discrimination when they dismantled the Memphis-area district, which they argue violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The panel of federal judges, which consisted of two Trump appointees and one Obama appointee, wrote in their opinion that plaintiffs likely would not win their lawsuit because they “lack any direct evidence of racial motivation.”
“The road to a reliably 9-0 map runs through Memphis,” the judges wrote in their opinion. “Thus, political motivations readily explain the map’s dilutive effects.”
Tennessee is among at least eight Republican-led states that have pursued congressional redistricting efforts ahead of the midterms as the GOP looks to preserve its majority in Congress. Democrats have condemned the efforts as attempts to weaken minority voting strength.
The Memphis-based district, which has a majority-Black population and has been represented by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), was broken up and placed into three separate districts stretching towards the suburbs of Nashville.
Following the Supreme Court ruling in May, the Congressional Black Caucus called on the nation’s largest corporations to oppose the redistricting efforts, arguing that “when voting rights are weakened and entire communities are systemically denied fair representation, the legitimacy and stability of the institutions that underpin our economy are weakened as well.”
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