After the Supreme Court’s decision to severely weaken the Voting Rights Act and its protections of majority-Black congressional districts, several Southern states are rushing to redraw their congressional maps. In Tennessee, the state’s Republican leaders are now pushing a new map that would carve up Memphis and Shelby County, diluting much of the state’s Black voting power.

Tennessee redistricting plan moving quickly

As The New York Times reported, Tennessee Republicans are poised to break up the state’s only majority-Black congressional district, just one week after the U.S. Supreme Court essentially nullified the Voting Rights Act’s protections for such majority-minority districts. Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who received a call from President Donald Trump shortly after the Supreme Court ruling to pursue redistricting, and the GOP supermajority of the Tennessee General Assembly set about repealing a state law that bans redistricting other than in census years, which occur every ten years. On Thursday afternoon, Republicans passed, and Lee signed into law a new congressional map that splits up the current 9th District by dividing the city of Memphis and Shelby County between three different districts, thus diluting the voting power of the Memphis area’s Black community and likely flipping the state’s only Democratic district for the Republican Party.

Democrats protest moves to dilute Black voting power

Given Republican control of the governor’s office and the state’s legislature, Tennessee Democrats had little direct power to stop the redistricting process. Nonetheless, opponents made their voices known, with hundreds of protestors showing up in Nashville to demonstrate at the Capitol. The protests brought together rivals within the party, including Rep. Steve Cohen, a white Democrat who currently represents the 9th District, and State Rep. Justin Pearson, who is challenging Cohen in the Democratic primary; the two politicians attended a rally together to protest the redistricting.

On social media, Cohen called the GOP congressional map “insane,” saying, “It’s a blatant, corrupt power grab that would destroy the Black community’s and our entire city’s voice.”

Pearson, who rose to national prominence when he and another Black representative, Justin Jones, were expelled from the Tennessee legislature for protesting for gun control, told a reporter that he was protesting to “stop the racist gerrymandering that is being proposed.” Pearson also called out Trump for his involvement in the redistricting push in Tennessee, saying, “Donald Trump is a white supremacist, domestic terrorist who is seeking to destroy our democracy by any means necessary.”