The Tennessee State Capitol
It may seem like it’s over, but it’s probably not.
On Jan. 20, the Tennessee state Senate approved — on a strictly party-line vote — new congressional districts and state Senate districts. The House voted on the maps Jan. 24, mimicking its brethren in the Capitol and similarly approving the maps on a partisan vote.
None of this is particularly surprising. With their walkout-proof super-duper-majority, legislative Republicans had no need to bring in Democrats when drawing the lines. Indeed, when Rep. Bob Freeman (D-Nashville) presented his party’s plan to the committee charged with crafting new districts, the GOP members thanked him, praised his salesmanship and then tabled the proposal before easily passing their own plan.
With Republicans controlling both chambers of the General Assembly and conservative Bill Lee in the governor’s office, Democrats warned that the new maps would heavily favor Republicans. To a degree, any map would, in a state where wildly popular Democratic former Gov. Phil Bredesen lost by 11 points in the 2018 race for the United States Senate against Marsha Blackburn — and where Donald Trump took 60 percent of the vote twice.
Democrats were content to concede the existing 7-2 split in the U.S. House districts and even the party’s state-level plans had significant GOP majorities. There are only so many ways to split a deep-red pie.
What was instead delivered was a sort of doomsday scenario: a map that sliced Nashville into three districts. The proposed 5th U.S. Congressional District winds from southern Davidson County through Williamson County and into the deep-red rural areas of southern Middle Tennessee. The new 6th goes from East Nashville all the way to the northern reaches of the Cumberland Plateau. The 7th stretches from western Davidson County to the Tennessee River. In short, Davidson County Democrats are lumped with the wealthier suburban counties — reliably Republican for 30 years or so — and, perhaps in an effort to guard against the trend of those types of voters moving back to the Democrats, with the former yellow-dog counties that have so dramatically turned red in the past two decades.
As it stands, Tennessee would move from seven safe Republican districts to eight, with the Memphis-based 9th the only Democratic stalwart. In the wake of the legislature voting to approve redistricting, longtime Democratic 5th Congressional District Rep. Jim Cooper announced that he will retire at the conclusion of his current term, saying, "There's no way, at least for me in this election cycle."
Viewed at a distance, the congressional districts — with the exception of the snaking 5th — at least look normal, whereas the state legislative maps have the bizarre shapes more associated with gerrymandering. The new 13th state House district in Rutherford County, for example, looks vaguely like the digestive system, with an esophagus — in some places mere miles wide — connecting parts of La Vergne with farming communities farther south. La Vergne — which has a significant minority population and tends to vote for Democrats in heavier numbers than other places in Rutherford County — is split by the new map, with neither district connecting to Murfreesboro, where another good-size clutch of liberal voters reside.
What can be done? Legislatively, not much. So Democrats are likely to seek recourse judicially.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019’s Rucho v. Common Cause that partisan gerrymandering is a nonjusticiable question for federal courts, as it is impossible to quantify how much partisanship is too much. Arguing that Republicans drew districts to favor Republicans is a dead-end street for Democrats.
Any legal attack would instead likely focus on the newly drawn districts’ dilution of minority voters. Non-Hispanic whites make up 56 percent of Davidson County’s population, meaning voters of color would have — and under the traditional system of maintaining a Nashville-centered district do have — a significant influence on the outcome of elections. Under the Voting Rights Act and court decisions related to it, a compact and politically cohesive minority must have the opportunity to elect its “candidate of choice.” The Supreme Court ruled in 2017 that even if districts are drawn for the purpose of partisan gain, if the result is dilution of influence of minority voters, it is still racial gerrymandering and thus illegal.
Communities of color in North Nashville are now drawn with the white and Republican counties of western Middle Tennessee. Those south of downtown will have to make common political cause with southern Middle Tennessee.
The Tennessee Democratic Party didn’t waste any time, tweeting “we’ll see you in court” (and including a fundraising link, naturally) moments after the redistricting plan became public. Meanwhile, of course, Republicans maintain the maps will stand up to scrutiny.
Somebody will be right, and it’s all but certain a judge will decide who.
With the legislative session underway, we look at where state lawmakers are taking redistricting, education, criminal justice reform and more
