Almost immediately after Gov. Bill Lee signed into law legislation passed during this week's special session on congressional redistricting, the NAACP's Tennessee chapter filed a lawsuit against Lee and the Tennessee General Assembly seeking to void redistricting.
NAACP Tennessee president Gloria Sweet-Love is also listed as a petitioner in her capacity as a voter, as well as her organizational leadership.
The lawsuit alleges that the special session proclamation by the governor did not "specifically" state the call to change a statute that would prohibit late-decade redistricting or mention residency requirements for elections.
Protests from demonstrators and Democrats mark heated final day of whirlwind special session
Citing Article III, Section 9 of the Tennessee Constitution, the NAACP emphasizes that the power to convene a special session held by the governor requires that lawmakers "shall enter on no legislative business except that for which they were specifically called together," adding emphasis to the word "specifically" as they go on to later define it.
Instead of targeting the bill that officially redraws the congressional maps, the lawsuit instead zeroes in on House Bill 7001, which removes election residency requirements, and HB 7002, which removes the state law prohibiting the change of congressional districts between census years.
The NAACP requested an issuance of a declaratory judgment on the legality of the governor and General Assembly's actions of late-decade redistricting.
The organization also requested injunctive relief to bar the governor, General Assembly or anyone else from taking steps to further redistricting that came from the session, calling the new maps "illegitimately derived congressional district boundaries."
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed a notice of a requirement for a special three-judge panel. The notice did not contain any other reply to the allegations in the NAACP lawsuit.
"Under no circumstances can Respondents’ actions, which violate Tennessee statutory and constitutional provisions, be considered a benefit to the public for whom the statutory and constitutional provisions were enacted," the lawsuit states.
Democrats pushed back against the redistricting effort all week, likening the maps to the Jim Crow era and kicking off the week by stating there would be legal action ahead if the Republicans continued with their plans to redraw the state’s only federal Democratic seat — and only majority-Black district — into three Republican districts.
Republicans spent the week denying any racial implications for redrawing the map, stating several times they were based on politics and population and did not dispute the use of 2020 census data.
Update, 4 p.m.: The Tennessee Democratic Party filed its own lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Middle Tennessee on Friday afternoon. A statement from TNDP chair Rachel Campbell reads, in part:
“The Tennessee Democratic Party has made one thing clear from the very beginning: we are taking this fight everywhere it must be fought, at the polls, in the courts, and in the streets. We are outraged that Governor Bill Lee and Tennessee Republicans are attempting to roll back generations of civil rights progress in just three days through a redistricting scheme designed to unlawfully silence Black voters. This is not only racist, it’s reckless. Changing the rules midstream will create chaos for voters and throw communities into upheaval. We will fight these racially gerrymandered maps tooth and nail because the future of democracy in Tennessee, across the South, and throughout this nation depends on it.”
This article was first published by our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
