NAACP files for federal court injunction to stop new Tennessee congressional map

The same day the Democratic Party dropped its lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s new U.S. House map, the state NAACP chapter is petitioning a federal judicial panel to block the map while its case goes forward. 

The motion argues that the new map violates the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution and that the new map represents intentional racial discrimination meant to dilute the power of Black Memphis voters.

“In Memphis and across Shelby County, we’ve built generations of advocacy, organizing, and civic power,” said Gloria Sweet-Love, president of Tennessee’s NAACP chapter. “This intentionally discriminatory map seeks to break that apart by dividing us and weakening our voice at the ballot box.”

Following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais gutting parts of the Voting Rights Act, Tennessee Republican lawmakers redrew the state’s congressional map in hopes of upping their advantage from eight of the state’s nine U.S. House seats to all of them. 

The new map splits the Democratic stronghold of Memphis across three Congressional districts, giving the Republicans a partisan advantage, according to data analyzed by the Lookout. 

Memphis is home to Tennessee’s largest Black population, and under a map created in 2022, it was the only majority-minority Congressional district. The Supreme Court’s Callais ruling made it so states like Tennessee with a history of racial discrimination no longer have to create majority-minority U.S. House seats. 

The Memphis seat was not created by the Voting Rights Act, but Republicans hadn’t tried to break it up in previous redistricting cycles for fear that any attempt would violate the law. 

When state Republican lawmakers created the new map in May, several contended the newly drawn map was for partisan advantage and not intentionally racially discriminatory.

Republicans and Democrats have been engaged in a full-scale mid-cycle redistricting battle across the nation, with each party trying to gerrymander as many seats as possible in several states. Gerrymandering is the process by which lawmakers create bizarrely drawn districts in order to maximize their partisan advantage. 

Three-judge panel upholds Tennessee redistricting

In Tennessee, President Donald Trump won 64% of the state’s popular vote in 2024, but Republicans currently control 89% of the U.S. House seats. 

Trump started the redistricting campaign by pressuring Republicans to draw a new map in Texas, netting them the advantage in more U.S. House seats, after which both Democratic and Republican-controlled states began doing the same. 

The NAACP’s federal lawsuit has been consolidated with the League of Women Voters’ suit against the map and is one of two still pending against the new map. The NAACP’s state lawsuit was dismissed last month.

The other lawsuit still active is an ACLU lawsuit challenging the map, also arguing it is discriminatory. 

The NAACP’s motion