Legal Challenges Begin as Tennessee Redraws Sole Democratic District

Tennessee’s NAACP chapter files suit and others vow legal fights after Republicans split a Memphis congressional district into three parts in a special session.

State Rep. Justin J. Pearson, a Democrat, speaks during a rally after a special session of the state General Assembly to redraw U.S. congressional voting maps in Nashville, on May 7, 2026. AP Photo/George Walker IV

Tennessee’s chapter of the NAACP filed suit, and others hinted at further legal challenges, on May 7 over Tennessee’s newly enacted congressional map, which redraws Memphis into three districts and ends what had been the state’s only majority-black and its only Democrat-held congressional seat.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), the lone Democrat in Tennessee’s congressional delegation, also alluded to his own forthcoming legal challenges after the map passed, saying in a post on X that the “next stop” in Democratic pushback is in “the courts.”