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On Tuesday afternoon, a state court three-judge panel ruled against the NAACP in a lawsuit challenging the state's new congressional districts map, which divided up the predominantly Black city of Memphis into three districts following the U.S. Supreme Court’s weakening of the Voting Rights Act.
The panel has ordered the case dismissed with prejudice.
In its final order, the panel ruled that sovereign immunity — which protects states from being sued without consent — applied to Gov. Bill Lee and the General Assembly, but not Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett or Elections Coordinator Mark Goins.
The panel also ruled that only one of the plaintiffs — Devante Hill, who had qualified as a candidate in Tennessee’s Ninth Congressional District prior to the redistricting — had legal standing to bring the case. However, the panel found that all of Hill’s statutory and constitutional claims were without merit.
During a hearing on May 21, the plaintiffs argued that the General Assembly went beyond the language in Lee’s proclamation calling for the special legislative session to pass the maps. By repealing rather than suspending the law preventing redistricting between apportionments, the plaintiffs argued, the General Assembly went beyond Lee’s assignment of “faciltat[ing] the 2026 elections.” This surpassing of the borders of the proclamation would violate the Tennessee Constitution.
The panel found that the language “making statutory changes that are necessary to effectuate changes to the composition of Tennessee’s congressional districts and to facilitate 2026 congressional elections” was “fairly contained" in the General Assembly’s actions, and as a result, the plaintiffs’ constitutional challenge failed.
“Petitioners’ approach would have the Judicial Branch micromanaging its coequal Legislative Branch and substituting this Court’s judgment in place of the General Assembly’s on a granular level as to the specific exercises of its authority by inquiring into whether a specific action was actually necessary to accomplish a particular goal or what the best methods of carrying out congressional elections are,” the order read.
“This, the Court should not do. Moreover, it is neither equipped nor tasked to do so.”
Legal challenges to the new maps are still pending in federal court. However, they have all been consolidated and reassigned under the same judge — Chief District Judge William L. Campbell — who has denied temporary restraining orders against the maps in two cases. The plaintiffs will argue for a preliminary injunction against the maps before a federal three-judge panel that includes Campbell, but in a memorandum filed Monday, Campbell wrote that potential voter confusion amid ongoing litigation this close to an election “counsels strongly against the issuance of an injunction.”
This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
As we honor those who have served our country and made the ultimate sacrifice, it is also heartening to see the military right a wrong. Chris Davis brings us the moving story of a Purple Heart ceremony two decades in the making. It's worth a watch.
A heartfelt thanks to all who bravely serve.
- Carrie Sharp
