Tennessee approves new congressional map in latest redistricting flurry

Tennessee’s Republican-dominated state legislature and governor have approved a new congressional map ahead of the US midterms, carving up the state’s only Black majority district.

The approval on Thursday culminated the latest push in states across the country to redistrict ahead of the US midterms in November, which will determine which party controls the US House of Representatives and Senate.

While redistricting typically happens following the US census every ten years, several state legislatures have sought to redraw their congressional maps mid-decade to create more districts that favour their party.

The spree began with US President Donald Trump calling on the Republican-controlled legislature in Texas to redraw its map to create five more Republican-favoured US House Districts. Republican and Democratic-controlled legislatures in Missouri, California, Utah, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia and Texas have since followed suit.

The campaign was kicked into overdrive when the US Supreme Court ruled last week that a provision of the landmark 1973 Voting Rights Act, which prevented diluting the voting power of minorities, was unconstitutional.

Under the ruling, challengers must now prove that a map had been drawn to intentionally disenfranchise minority voters, a bar that voting rights groups charge is nearly impossible to clear.

The new Tennessee map splits the state’s only Democrat-held House district, which centres on the majority-Black city of Memphis. Black voters in the US have historically leaned heavily towards the Democratic Party.

Opposing legislators said the new map was intentionally drawn to ensure Black voting power was diluted throughout Tennessee’s nine congressional districts.

“These maps are racist tools of white supremacy at the behest of the most powerful white supremacist in the United States of America, Donald J Trump,” state Representative Justin Pearson, a Democrat, said.

Protesters held banners that denounced the redistricting as a “Jim Crow” effort, referring to the racist laws that mandated segregation in many southern states and cities in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Republican House Speaker, Cameron Sexton, maintained the new districts were drawn based on population and politics, not racial data.

Republican state Senator John Stevens said legislators in states across the country regularly draw congressional maps to benefit their parties, a process known as gerrymandering.

“This bill represents Tennessee’s attempt to maximise our partisan advantage,” he said.

It is not clear if more states would redraw their congressional maps ahead of the midterm elections.