MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Republican governors in Alabama and Tennessee have called lawmakers into special sessions this week to draw new congressional districts after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.
Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey called legislators back to Montgomery starting Monday to approve contingency plans for special primary elections in hopes the Supreme Court will let the state switch congressional maps ahead of the November midterms. It’s a move that Republican legislative leaders said would “give our state a fighting chance to send seven Republican members to Congress.” The seven-member delegation currently has two Democrats.
In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee also announced a special session starting Tuesday for the GOP-controlled Legislature to break up the state’s one Democratic-held House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis.
Last week’s Supreme Court decision striking down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana said the drawing of the map relied too heavily on race. The ruling began reverberating through statehouses across the South as Republicans eyed the possibility of getting new voting district lines in place for the 2026 midterm elections, or at least for 2028.
President Donald Trump on Sunday encouraged more states to join in redistricting in a social media post, saying his party could gain 20 House seats.
“We should demand that State Legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done,” Trump said. “That is more important than administrative convenience.”
A national redistricting battle is expanding
Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn only once a decade, after a census, to account for population changes. But Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw U.S. House districts to give the party an advantage. Democrats in California responded by doing the same, and then other states joined in.
Lawmakers, commissions or courts already have adopted new House districts in eight states ahead of the midterm elections. Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats from new congressional districts in five states, while Democrats think they could pick up as many as 10 seats from new districts adopted in three states.
Florida became the latest to approve new districts the day of the Supreme Court ruling. Louisiana moved quickly to delay its May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts. Democrats and civil rights groups are challenging that election suspension in court. South Carolina’s governor suggested his state might also reconsider its congressional map.
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, described the court decision and redistricting scramble as an attempt to roll back the Civil Rights Movement.
“They said we’re going to allow partisan politicians to gerrymander you, so that even when you show up, your voice won’t have as much impact because we’ll play with the lines,” he said Sunday from the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. once served as pastor. “That isn’t a new method. That’s an old method. That’s a Jim Crow method.”
Alabama and Tennessee push for new House maps
Federal judges previously ordered Alabama to use a court-selected map with a second district with a substantial number of Black voters. The judges also ordered Alabama to use the new map until after the 2030 Census. Alabama is appealing that decision and is hoping the court, in light of the Louisiana ruling, will let Alabama revert to a 2023 map drawn by state lawmakers. That proposal would substantially alter the district now represented by Rep. Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat.
The proposal in Alabama hinges on the courts lifting the injunction in time to switch maps before the November election. Lawmakers will consider bills that will enable special congressional primaries in the four impacted congressional districts if that happens.
“As I continue saying, Alabama knows our state, our people and our districts best,” Ivey said.
Democrats sharply criticized any attempt to change the House districts ahead of the looming elections.
“This special session is a blatant power grab by Republican leadership in Montgomery to eliminate seats held by Black Democrats,” said former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, a Democratic candidate for Alabama governor.
Tennessee’s move comes after a pressure campaign by Trump and other Republicans to reconfigure the state’s 9th Congressional District. Republicans had been prevented by previous precedent in Voting Rights Act cases from spreading the district’s Democratic voters among neighboring conservative districts and making it winnable. But the law may no longer be an impediment.
“We owe it to Tennesseans to ensure our congressional districts accurately reflect the will of Tennessee voters,” Lee, the governor, said.
The candidate qualifying period in Tennessee ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6. Democrats noted that in 2022, the state Supreme Court checked additional redistricting because it was too close to an election. They argued that the court is their best hope this time around, too.
“We cannot keep doing things like this and calling ourselves a democracy,” Democratic state Sen. Raumesh Akbari said at a news conference outside the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.
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Associated Press writers Jeff Amy, Bill Barrow, Jack Brook, Nicholas Riccardi and David A. Lieb contributed to this report.
