Republican governors in Alabama and Tennessee have summoned lawmakers into special sessions this week seeking new congressional districts after the US Supreme Court weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has called legislators back to Montgomery starting Monday to approve contingency plans for special primary elections in hopes that the Supreme Court will allow the state to switch congressional maps ahead of the November midterms, reports the AP. It's a move that Republican legislative leaders said would "give our state a fighting chance to send seven Republican members to Congress." The seven-member delegation currently has two Democrats.
In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee also announced a special session starting Tuesday for the GOP-controlled Legislature to break up the state's one Democratic-held House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis. The Supreme Court decision striking down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana said the drawing of the district map relied too much on race. The ruling began reverberating through statehouses across the South as Republicans eyed the possibility of getting new lines in place for the 2026 midterm elections, or at least 2028. President Trump encouraged the latest round of redistricting in a post on social media on Sunday, saying his party could gain 20 seats in the House. "We should demand that State Legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done," Trump said. "That is more important than administrative convenience."
Florida approved new districts the day of the Supreme Court ruling, and Louisiana moved quickly to postpone its May 16 congressional primary, drawing lawsuits from Democrats and civil rights groups. The state's Republican leadership started planning for a redraw that could eliminate one or both of its congressional districts now represented by a Black lawmaker. South Carolina's governor suggested his state might also reconsider its congressional map. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, described the court decision and the redistricting scramble as an attempt to roll back the Civil Rights Movement. "They said we're going to allow partisan politicians to gerrymander you, so that even when you show up, your voice won't have as much impact because we'll play with the lines," he said. "That's an old method. That's a Jim Crow method."
Federal judges previously ordered Alabama to use a court-selected map that created a second district with a substantial number of Black voters. The judges also ordered Alabama to use the new map until after the 2030 Census. Alabama is appealing that decision and is hoping the court, in light of the Louisiana ruling, will let Alabama revert to a 2023 map drawn by state lawmakers. Tennessee's move comes after a pressure campaign by Trump and other Republicans to reconfigure the state's 9th Congressional District. Republicans have always been checkmated by the Voting Rights Act in their desire to spread the district's Democratic voters around neighboring conservative districts and make it winnable, but the law may no longer be an impediment. "We cannot keep doing things like this and calling ourselves a democracy," Democratic state Sen. Ramesh Akbari said.
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