As Tennessee lawmakers return to the Capitol Tuesday for a special session to redraw the state’s 9th Congressional District, Democrats are prepping for legal action over the proposal, which would make the state’s only federal Democratic seat — and majority-Black district — Republican.
State Democrats gathered for a virtual briefing Monday night, during which they acknowledged that Tennessee’s Republican supermajority will likely pass the redistricting plan, which includes most of Memphis. However, they said the steps they take during the special session will impact how Democrats can respond afterward.
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“Our goal is to lay the foundation for legal challenges that are necessarily going to come and hopefully allow us to push this into the court system,” said House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville). “Whether it's to delay it, overturn it. ... That's the limitations of our recourse at this moment.”
“No Democrat in the state legislature is going to stand for this,” Clemmons added. “And we're going to fight like hell to make sure that, if they do this, they're going to come out of this bruised and looking as bad as possible, as they very well should.”
The special session follows a social media post from President Donald Trump last week, in which the president said he would like to see Tennessee become fully Republican — a reaction to Wednesday's U.S. Supreme Court decision dealing a blow to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. SCOTUS ruled in Louisiana v. Callais that it’s illegal to draw congressional maps based on race.
So far, Republicans have proposed five bills and Democrats have filed one to be considered during the session. House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) sponsored all five of the Republican bills.
House Bill 7001 would remove the residency requirement for the 2026 primary election, which includes candidates for this election. It could also translate to more appointment power for political parties, given the pace of how the districts could change.
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House Bills 7002, 7003 and 7004 would prepare the state statute to redraw the congressional maps. This would allow lawmakers to redraw the map, even though it’s not following a federal census, which is when the last redistricting efforts took place.
HB 7005 would pay for the special session, which is expected to last through Thursday. That would mean paying for lawmakers to conduct business for three days, assuming the session doesn’t stretch into Friday. In the 2023 special session on public safety following the Covenant School shooting, each day cost taxpayers about $60,000 — including per diem pay for each lawmaker and transportation. With gas hovering near $4 per gallon, those figures could change from the marks of three years ago.
The lone Democratic bill, sponsored by Clemmons, would redraw the congressional map to resemble one from 2020. Clemmons would make Nashville whole again, rather than split between the 5th, 6th and 7th Congressional Districts. It would also place the majority of Memphis in the 9th Congressional District as its own voting bloc.
During Monday’s briefing, Memphis Democrats Rep. Karen Camper, Sen. London Lamar and Senate Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari expressed concerns over redistricting's impact on democracy and voter choice in their districts.
“What we see right now is really stealing,” Akbari said. “It is stealing the voices of people in the Memphis and Shelby County community. It is stealing the power. It is stealing the influence, and certainly it is stealing the right for the people who live in that community to be able to select their candidate of choice.”
The 9th Congressional District is currently represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis, who said Monday that he has been in contact with attorneys in preparation to take legal action.
“The courts is where we can win,” said Cohen. “Brown v. Board of Education came through the courts. Roe v. Wade came through the courts. Many of our rights have come through the courts.”
In a statement, State Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) — who is also challenging Cohen in the congressional primary — called the special session “a racist act that flies in the face of 250 years of democracy in the United States.”
“We will defend Tennessee’s only Democratic and only majority-Black district from this racist attack on Black political power,” Pearson said. “We will uphold the legacy of our ancestors who prayed, marched, fought, bled and even died so that we could have the opportunity to participate in our democracy and elect representatives who share our values, concerns and lived experiences.”
