{"id":15161,"date":"2026-07-24T00:12:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T19:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=15161"},"modified":"2026-07-24T00:12:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T19:12:27","slug":"tennessee-gerrymandering-challenge-fails-just-as-supreme-court-intended","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=15161","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Gerrymandering Challenge Fails, Just as Supreme Court Intended"},"content":{"rendered":"<script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n\r\n<br><div id=\"article-content\">\n            \n\n\n\n\n<p>A panel of judges on Thursday unanimously rebuffed Black Tennesseans\u2019 attempt to block the state\u2019s new 9-0 Republican gerrymander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<!-- \/wp:post-content -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>The panel was composed of one Obama appointee and two Trump appointees.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Tennessee Republicans were the first to act after the Supreme Court decided <em>Callais<\/em>, the case that virtually killed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and made racial vote dilution in redistricting impossible to prove. Legislators cracked the Memphis seat long held by Rep. Steve Cohen (D) into three parts, diluting the Black vote into heavily Republican areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>As the 6-3 right-wing Supreme Court supermajority intended, the coalition of Black voters and associated organizations was unable to prove that the map was a result of racially motivated redistricting.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cHere, the map\u2019s effects \u2014 breaking Black Memphians into three separate congressional districts \u2014 are readily explainable by political motivations,\u201d wrote the panel in <em>Sherman v. Hargett<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s no secret (supported by Plaintiffs\u2019 own statements) that city voters prefer Democratic candidates and that rural voters prefer Republican candidates.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cSo it makes sense that Tennessee\u2019s legislature would split Memphis into thirds when attempting to create a map that favors Republican candidates,\u201d it continued. \u201cAnd it\u2019s no surprise that the resulting map would also split the Black population of Memphis into thirds.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>In the southern states that most consistently violated the pre-<em>Callais <\/em>VRA, race and partisan lean are inextricable, requiring plaintiffs to provide smoking gun evidence that the legislators were racially motivated. In this case, the judges dismissed most of plaintiffs\u2019 proof as irrelevant, since the lawmakers who made various racist comments are no longer in the state legislature. Of the one still serving \u2014\u00a0state Rep. Paul Sherrell (R), who wondered whether he could \u201cput an amendment on that that would include hanging by a tree, also\u201d during a debate on death penalty legislation \u2014 the judges said it wasn\u2019t enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cAnd although Plaintiffs cite one insensitive and regrettable remark from Rep. Paul Sherrell, who remains in the legislature, we\u2019re \u2018wary of relying on the remarks of a single legislator\u2019 to ascertain the intent of the body,\u201d they wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>And even if the plaintiffs had been able to dredge up proof of racist intent from legislators well coached to avoid making such comments while redrawing maps, the Supreme Court had added yet another stumbling block.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>\u201cThe Supreme Court recently confirmed that the <em>Purcell<\/em> principle doesn\u2019t prevent states from altering their own election rules \u2014\u00a0it discourages only federal courts from doing so,\u201d the judges wrote.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>So Tennessee is free to pass and enforce a new gerrymander on the eve of the midterm elections, but the courts can\u2019t intervene to block it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph --><!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>The next Tennessee congressional delegation will almost certainly be entirely Republican and, more likely than not, entirely white \u2014 serving a state that is about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/quickfacts\/fact\/table\/TN\/PST045225\" target=\"_blank\">16 percent Black<\/a> and where 35 percent of voters cast a ballot for Kamala Harris in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Read the ruling here: <\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:html -->\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1Lw_FJqp_4bgF7qyszaAbhE-TccqMZ_q0\/preview\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"><\/iframe>\n<!-- \/wp:html --><!-- \/wp:paragraph -->          <\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n    window.fbAsyncInit = function() {\n      FB.init({\n        appId: \"101800829865996\",\n        xfbml: true,\n        version: ' v2.6'\n      });\n      window.fbAsyncInit.__didInit = true;\n    };\n    (function(d, s, id) {\n      var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n      if (d.getElementById(id)) {\n        return;\n      }\n      js = d.createElement(s);\n      js.id = id;\n      js.src = \"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\";\n      fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n    }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));\n  <\/script>\r\n<br><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A panel of judges on Thursday unanimously rebuffed Black Tennesseans\u2019 attempt to block the state\u2019s new 9-0 Republican gerrymander. The panel was composed of one Obama appointee and two Trump appointees.\u00a0 Tennessee Republicans were the first to act after the Supreme Court decided Callais, the case that virtually killed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2194384181.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}