Alas, poor Steven Cohen, we hardly knew ye … oh, wait, we only knew ye too well. Tennessee’s lone congressional Democrat faces tough sledding in the midterms now that the Tennessee legislature has started the redistricting process. Cohen represents the Volunteer State’s 9th CD, which up to now is the state’s lone majority-minority district crafted under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. For 20 years, Cohen has held the seat that legislators had crafted for a black candidate, which made the whole racial-gerrymandering process in Tennessee a big bust.
The district, which resembles a misshapen chess piece, is about to become a relic. The Tennessee state House just approved a new map for congressional districts that eliminates the D+23 set-aside. Democrats met the moment with decorum and poise to contrast … oh, who are we kidding? Democrats and their activist allies in the gallery attempted to obstruct the final vote, to no avail:
🚨 BREAKING: The Tennessee House has officially PASSED the new Congressional maps, which will ELIMINATE the state’s only Democrat district
And as expected, the Democrats in the chamber started SCREAMING and MELTING DOWN 🤣🔥
They’re like CHILDREN 😂🤡
KEEP THIS UP, GOP! pic.twitter.com/usIzUxhlfo
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) May 7, 2026
The redrawn district lines, which Gov. Bill Lee is expecected to sign into law, put Republicans in position to gain a seat in this fall’s midterm elections and secure full control over Tennessee’s congressional delegation.
The new map carves up a Memphis-based seat held by longtime Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., into three districts, spreading the Democratic voters into more rural, Republican districts that stretch hundreds of miles east. It also further splits the Nashville metropolitan area into five districts. …
The Tennessee state House passed the map without any Republican speaking in defense of it. When one member rose to speak, members of the public watching the proceedings from the gallery began chanting and yelling so loudly the House speaker called the vote as Democratic members stood and walked out on the session.
“This is not a special session. This is a white power rally and a white power grab,” said Democratic state Rep. Gloria Johnson, who represents Knoxville. “Vote yes — you’re telling everyone you’re racist.”
Ahem. Steve Cohen is not black. If these gerrymandered districts had the intent to ensure black representation in Congress, it clearly failed in Tennessee anyway. As for the Nashville split, that does seem like a stretch, but nowhere near the stretch attempted by Virginia Democrats to anchor five of the state’s eleven districts in Fairfax County.
The state Senate took up the measure immediately and passed it quickly, with similar histrionics from the Democrat caucus. As NBC News reports, Gov. Bill Lee has already indicated his support for the redistricting effort. This map will apply to the midterms, absent a judicial intervention. Cohen has already declared he will sue to stop it:
He said if the new districts are used for the upcoming midterm elections, it could be a First Amendment violation.
“We’ve been campaigning hard since the filing deadline in March, but since really October. And that’s a First Amendment violation,” Cohen said. “There will be a lawsuit in state court. I will be a plaintiff among others. If (the lawsuit) that’s effective, Congress District 9, as it’s been now, the majority minority district, will continue to 2028.” …
“If the courts rule that this district has not had enough time to have an election, and the election process has already started, that would infringe on First Amendment rights of candidates who’ve already started campaigning,” Cohen said.
Presumably, Cohen is referring to a right of assembly; the news report did not explain the mechanics of a First Amendment challenge. That argument has two problems. First, the majority-minority district Cohen represents is likely unconstitutional under Callais now and would have to be redrawn anyway. Second, the right to assembly does not negate the authority of states to craft congressional and legislative maps, either by legislatures or deputized commissions. It is unusual to have a redistricting process in the middle of an election, but it is hardly unique either. Courts have ordered states to do it at times after challenges to normal redistricting, usually based on Section 2 of the VRA.
Cohen and voters can assemble all they want in Tennessee. If Cohen wants another term in office, though, he’ll need to pick one of the new districts and meet the voters where they are.
Another state will jump into the fray, according to the Daily Caller’s Amber Duke. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves plans to ride Callais into a much broader application:
“In Mississippi, it’s a little bit more complicated of an answer,” Reeves said when asked about the fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais. “We are in the middle of a Section 2 Voting Rights Act case in the federal courts as we speak.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Callais found that Louisiana’s congressional map amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, sending shockwaves through Southern states where black-majority Democratic districts have often been defended under the VRA.
Mississippi, Reeves said, now has three separate redistricting fights in play.
“We have Supreme Court districts, we have congressional districts – which is what everybody in Washington, D.C., cares about — and then we have legislative districts,” Reeves said.
Reeves’ point references an underappreciated aspect of Callais. States didn’t get forced into drawing majority-minority districts under earlier applications of the VRA just for their congressional maps. That also applied to state legislative maps, and lots of states may be forced to redraw those when people start filing challenges similar to the one brought in Callais. That very much includes Virginia, where the Democrats have built a high floor for progressive legislators in the NoVA and Richmond areas. Those ripples will take longer to reach the political shore, so to speak, but the outcome in the long run may be to force politicians of both parties to appeal a little more to the middle as districts get drawn without the polarizing filter of the VRA.
Update: Bill Lee is nearly as fast as Ron DeSantis:
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a new U.S. House map into law Thursday that carves up a majority-Black district in Memphis, reshaping it to the GOP’s advantage as part of President Donald Trump’s strategy to hold on to a slim majority in the November midterm elections.
Lee’s signature came quickly after the Republican-led legislature gave final approval to the redistricting plan despite loud, angry protests at the Capitol.
Has anyone done a welfare check on Hakeem Jeffries yet? Also: AP photographer George Walker IV got a great shot, which we’ve used for the front-page image. The response to this protestor is that all votes matter, which is precisely what the Supreme Court ruled in Callais, under the US Constitution. If you want to win seats in Congress, you’d better start appealing to them rather than rely on racial set-asides.
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