NDRC Statement on Tennessee’s Shameful Congressional Gerrymander Proposal

Washington, D.C. — Today, John Bisognano, President of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), issued the following statement in response to the new congressional gerrymander proposed in the Republican-led Tennessee General Assembly:

“The ink was barely dry on the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision to gut the Voting Rights Act before Tennessee Republicans rushed to be the first to shamelessly capitalize on it by proposing a gerrymander that systematically targets Black voters in Memphis—one of the largest majority-Black cities in the country—and ensures all of the state’s congressional districts are majority-white. 

“This proposal takes an already egregious gerrymander to an even greater extreme by carving up Memphis into three districts, connecting it to rural areas hundreds of miles away, stretching as far as middle Tennessee—communities with needs far different from those of Memphians. It robs Black voters of the ability to elect a congressional candidate of their choice—reversing a right that Black Memphians fought for with blood, sweat and tears. What Tennessee Republicans are doing is not only wrong, it is also immoral.

“Republicans are doing this because they think they can get away with it without consequence. But they are wrong. Tennesseans from across the state are already rising up against this un-American attempt to deny Black voters their voice at the ballot box, and, if enacted, this map will be challenged in court.” 

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:

For over 30 years, Memphis’s Black population and the city’s suburbs have been united in a single congressional district. On the proposed gerrymander, all of Tennessee’s congressional districts would be majority-white districts. According to the 2020 census, Memphis’s Black population accounts for 63% of the city’s total population.

The proposed gerrymander carves up Shelby County, which includes the Memphis metropolitan area, into three districts that each stretch hundreds of miles into rural areas of the state and into middle Tennessee. Below are descriptions of the proposed districts: 

District 5: The proposed fifth congressional district stretches from the Tennessee-Arkansas border along the Mississippi River, including downtown Memphis, and extends into the middle of Williamson County, which includes Nashville suburbs.  

District 8: The proposed eighth congressional district stretches from East Memphis and much of the city’s eastern suburbs to Perry County, a very rural county in middle Tennessee. 

District 9: The proposed ninth congressional district stretches from South Memphis to Bedford, Moore and Lincoln counties in middle Tennessee, as well as Williamson and Ruthford counties, which include suburbs of Nashville. 

The proposed gerrymander goes even further, carving up the broader Nashville metropolitan area, including its suburbs, into five congressional districts. 

Davidson County, home to Nashville, is split into three congressional districts — the 4th, 6th, and 7th— with the 4th and 6th districts stretching into rural counties hundreds of miles away in East Tennessee. 

Meanwhile, Williamson County, which includes major Nashville suburbs like Franklin, is split into two districts that are both connected to Memphis—the 5th and 9th congressional districts. 

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