Democrats drop Tennessee redistricting challenge; two other legal challenges ongoing
Tennessee Democrats have voluntarily dismissed a federal lawsuit challenging a Republican-led redistricting process that carved majority-Black, majority Democratic Memphis into three U.S. House districts.
The now-dismissed challenge was brought by the Tennessee Democratic Party, four Democrats running for U.S. House seats and four voters. The plaintiffs included U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who represented District 9, encompassing Memphis, for 19 years before announcing his retirement as a result of the redrawn map. State Rep. Justin Pearson, who initially entered the race for Congress to challenge Cohen and is now running for Congress in the reconstituted 9th District, was also a plaintiff.
The brief notice of voluntary dismissal filed with the court Tuesday did not detail reasons for the dismissal. Pearson, in a statement, attributed the move to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v Callais, which gutted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. On June 2, in a separate Alabama case, the Supreme Court upheld maps that divided Black voters who were a majority in one district, into three districts in which they are now minorities.
Cohen said he was now throwing his support behind two other legal challenges to redistricting that remain in play in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee: One lawsuit brought by the ACLU and another by the NAACP and League of Women Voters. Both suits allege racial discrimination in the redrawing of maps that eliminated the sole majority-minority U.S.House district.
https://tennesseelookout.com/briefs/democrats-drop-tennessee-redistricting-challenge-two-other-legal-challenges-ongoing/