Federal Court Upholds Tennessee’s New Congressional Map

Tennessee does not have to redraw its new congressional map because groups that sued, alleging lawmakers illegally considered race, did not disprove alternative explanations, a federal court has ruled. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other groups that sued Tennessee said in their complaint that state legislators redrew the map in a way that distributed minority voters across several districts, diluting their power. “The complaint alleges that minority voters prefer Democratic candidates. It also alleges that the changes (by a Republican-controlled Legislature) flipped a congressional seat long held by a Democratic representative and shored up a state senate seat that a Republican senator barely won in a recent election. In light of this partisanship explanation for the changes, the complaint fails to allege ‘more than the mere possibility’ of racial discrimination,” three federal judges said in the new ruling....