Lawmakers in Tennessee are set to open a redistricting special session on Tuesday as a chain reaction from last week’s Supreme Court decision spreads across the South and threatens to reshape congressional primaries before the November elections.
Alabama’s special session is scheduled to begin Monday, Louisiana lawmakers are already weighing new maps, and Florida on Monday became the eighth state to enact new House districts ahead of the midterm elections. The pace is unusual even by redistricting standards, and it comes as President Donald Trump presses more states to join in.
The fight began with the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana. The court said the state relied too heavily on race when it created a second Black majority House district in an effort to comply with the Voting Rights Act, a decision that significantly altered a decades-old understanding of the law. The Voting Rights Act, enacted in 1965, became one of the most consequential laws in the nation’s history because it was meant to protect against racial discrimination in voting and representation.
Now the same ruling is being used to force a broader political scramble. Trump urged states on Sunday to move quickly, saying Republicans could gain 20 House seats if legislatures redraw lines. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a map passed by lawmakers last week that could help Republicans win as many as four additional House seats. Across the country, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats from new congressional districts in five states, while Democrats think they could pick up as many as 10 seats from districts adopted in three states.
Civil rights activists reacted Monday with rallies, protests and lawsuits challenging the redistricting efforts. Alanah Odoms, who spoke for that opposition, called the push a wave of nefarious actions, underscoring how quickly a court fight over one district has widened into a political battle over how far states can go in redrawing maps.
The tension is that congressional districts are typically redrawn only once a decade after a census, yet this year’s map fight is moving on a faster and more partisan timetable. Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw U.S. House districts to give the party an advantage, Democrats in California answered in kind, and now other states have joined the rush. The result is a redistricting battle that is no longer confined to the usual once-a-decade cycle and is instead spreading state by state before voters go to the polls in November.
That makes the sessions in Alabama and Tennessee more than routine legislative meetings. They are part of a widening contest over who gets to shape the next House map, and the answer in Tennessee will not wait for later in the year. It starts Tuesday.