24 DAILY NEWS – Republican lawmakers in Tennessee have swiftly enacted changes to congressional voting districts following a recent Supreme Court ruling that undermined the Voting Rights Act. On May 7, 2026, Republican Governor Bill Lee signed a bill repealing a decades-old law that prevented mid-decade redistricting. Subsequently, the predominantly Republican legislature passed new maps that eliminate Tennessee’s only Black-majority district, the 9th Congressional District, which will be divided into three districts with white-majority populations.
The implications of these changes are significant. The redistricting aims to dilute the voting power of Memphis’s 63 percent Black population, effectively handing over control of the state’s congressional seats to Republicans.
### Predicted Outcomes
This situation was widely anticipated in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which weakened protections for minority voters against discriminatory redistricting practices. The new ruling empowers lawmakers to engage in what critics term “segregationist gerrymandering,” echo
