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On May 6, the Tennessee state legislature passed, and the following day the governor signed, a new Congressional map that fractures the state’s only Democratic-leaning district into three separate districts. The move effectively dismantles the voting power of District 9, in Memphis, where 69 percent of residents are Black, 43 percent of children live in poverty and the legacy of environmental racism is central to lived experience. Within days, all twenty-four Democratic caucus members in the legislature were cited with violation of decorum and were removed from their standing committees and subcommittees for the remainder of the year. Two days later, the incumbent Democratic House member for the district, Representative Steve Cohen, ended his campaign for reelection, citing a nearly impossible chance that a Democrat could win with the new maps.
This ruling did not emerge in isolation. It reflects a broader erosion of voting protections that began decades ago and accelerated during the Trump era. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was designed to prohibit racial discrimination in voting after centuries of deliberate exclusion. It sought to prevent white Southern officials from using violence, intimidation, poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses to block Black voters from casting ballots and to ensure that racially underrepresented groups had the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. For decades, it served as a powerful tool to leverage more equitable political representation.
But the protections provided under this law have been dramatically weakened by recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, including one issued on April 29, Louisiana v. Callais, which some experts are describing as the final blow to the Voting Rights Act. The ruling, which could affect nearly seventy Congressional districts, narrowed the application of Section 2, and requires a higher bar for proving discrimination. It limits federal oversight of state election laws, opens the door for opportunity hoarding by white elites, and advances two of the Trump Administration’s key goals.
The first of these goals is to embrace a “colorblind” approach to policy by eliminating the consideration of race across institutions. In his first term, President Donald Trump dropped affirmative action guidelines and paved the way for the Supreme Court to end affirmative action in university application processes. The current administration has continued this pursuit, largely ending the use of the terms diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as many other social justice terms across federal agencies, and sought to eradicate any consideration or mention of race in almost any matter, except when it comes to anti-racism protections for white people.
This approach ignores how colorblindness in the face of rampant racism perpetuates racism, as well as troves of evidence of persistent racial disparities impacting nearly all life outcomes among Black, Latino, and Indigenous people, as well as other people of color.
Second, Trump has pursued an aggressive consolidation of executive power. Beyond trying to overturn a presidential election, he has demanded an administration of loyalists, eliminated many guardrails which hold executive power in check, and pressured states to redistrict towards partisan advantage. This has ensnared many states into a gerrymandering battle that continues to rage. Tennessee’s new map is one play in this larger push.
Racial imbalances in political representation in Tennessee existed prior to this remapping. Of the ninety-nine seats in the Tennessee house of representatives, only twelve are held by Black legislators. In the thirty-three-member state senate, only three lawmakers are Black. Tennessee’s population is approximately 78 percent white people and 16 percent Black people. If representation reflected population demographics more closely, we would expect roughly six more Black lawmakers.
At the federal level, representation has also failed to reflect the state’s demographic diversity. Tennessee has eleven members of Congress, two senators, and nine representatives, none of whom are Black.
Tennessee House Republicans have faced national scrutiny over race relations before. In 2023, this body made national news when it expelled two Black legislators, Democratic Representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, from the state house, a move that drew widespread criticism. Both representatives were promptly reinstated by their constituents, underscoring the disconnect between legislative power and voter preferences.
We need to recognize these injustices for what they are: an effort to suppress the political voice of a community with a history of disenfranchisement. It is either willful ignorance or intentional racism. After the racial reckoning of 2020, there is even less room, especially among political leaders, to claim obliviousness about the historical and ongoing realities of anti-Black racism and systemic racial oppression in the United States.
In a democracy, power is not meant to serve the few, it is meant to be responsive to and represent us all.
This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.