‘Significant Harm’: Federal Judges Dismiss Lawsuit Claiming Racism Motivated Tennessee Lawmakers to Carve District That Allegedly Dilutes Black Vote

A federal court in Tennessee dismissed a lawsuit by the state NAACP and others alleging that unconstitutional racial gerrymandering was at play in Tennessee’s redrawing of its U.S. House and state Senate voter district maps. The lawsuit, filed in 2023 in the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee in Nashville, argued that district boundaries reshaped in 2022 by a GOP supermajority in the Tennessee legislature were unconstitutional and intentionally racially discriminated against Black and minority voters. The complaint contended that the 2022 maps, which divided up Democratic-leaning Nashville in Davidson County into three congressional districts, helping Republicans to flip a seat and giving them control of eight of the state’s nine congressional seats, were intentionally drawn to dilute the voting power of Black and other minority voters. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee speaks during the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 16, 2024. (Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski / AFP) (Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images) The plaintiffs, who included the Tennessee NAACP, the African American Clergy Collective of Tennessee, the Equity Alliance, and the League of Women Voters of Tennessee, also challenged state Senate District 31 in majority-Black Shelby County...