“No new maps. Black votes matter”
Amid raucous protests Thursday, Republicans in Tennessee enacted a new US House map that carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Donald Trump’s strategy to hold on to a slim majority in the November midterm elections.
The final Senate vote unfolded as demonstrators chanted loudly in the galleries and hallways.
Democratic state Sen. Charlane Oliver stood on her desk in the Senate chamber, holding a banner denouncing the redistricting as a “Jim Crow” effort, then clapping and dancing.
Other Democratic senators linked arms in the front of the chamber. Republican leadership quickly adjourned the special session, sending the new map on to Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who promptly signed it into law.
Protesters in the galleries also had disrupted the Republican-led House as it voted for the new map — yelling, chanting and blowing air horns.
The new map splits Shelby County, the home of Memphis, a majority-Black city that played a critical role in the civil rights movement, into three separate Republican-leaning districts. The new lines could oust Democratic US Representative Steve Cohen, who has represented Memphis since 2007. Republicans already control the state’s other eight districts.
Tennessee is the first state to pass new congressional districts since a US Supreme Court ruling last week significantly weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities. But more Southern states could follow.
