The suit says the plans violate the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and amount to “unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.”
MEMPHIS, Tenn — A group of organizations have come together and filed a lawsuit challenging redistricting in Tennessee.
The League of Women Voters of Tennessee, Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP, the African American Clergy Collective of Tennessee, the Equity Alliance, the Memphis A. Philip Randolph Institute, and individual Tennessee voters joined together in the federal lawsuit.
The suit alleges that congressional and state redistricting plans that went into effect in 2022 are “intentionally discriminatory against Black voters and other voters of color.” It says the plans violate the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and amount to “unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.”
The groups say the redistricting breaks up districts with voters who are majority Black and people of color, diluting their votes. In Memphis specifically, the lawsuit said the plans “disempower the growing community of Black and brown voters … by splitting state senate district 31.”
The lawsuit also claims there was a lack of transparency during the redistricting process in the state. It says if the plans remain in place, votes by people of color will continue “to be diluted due to selective redistricting.”
“The maps approved by the Tennessee legislature intentionally erode the voices of communities of color in Tennessee,” said Debby Gould, President of the League of Women Voters of Tennessee. “Tennesseans want their counties and their cities kept whole, but mapmakers ignored their interests, creating unfair districts that split communities and dilute their power.”
“The plan uses a perverse approach to gerrymandering, seemingly motivated by race, that undermines the equal protection of African-Americans and dilutes the African-American vote,” said Gloria Sweet-Love, President of the Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP. “There is no constitutional justification for supporting the state legislature’s senate and congressional redistricting plan. Allowing these plans to survive will establish a dangerous precedent.”
Click here to view the full complaint.