Cracked

The South is being redrawn. Watch who disappears from the map.

Note to my future self.

Yesterday Tennessee’s Republican supermajority passed a new congressional map that splits Memphis into three districts.

Memphis is over 60% Black. The new map disperses those voters into three districts, each tied to whiter, more rural areas stretching as far as the Nashville suburbs.

The map gives each of the three resulting districts a Black voting-age population of around 30%. Enough to count. Not enough to elect.

This is called cracking. It’s a gerrymandering technique as old as the term itself. And it just dismantled the political voice of the second largest city in Tennessee.

The state’s only Democratic congressional seat — currently held by Steve Cohen — disappears. Tennessee Republicans openly said the goal is a 9 to 0 all-Republican delegation.

Mid-cycle redistricting was illegal in Tennessee for more than fifty years. The legislature repealed that law this week to clear the path.

Memphis state Rep. Justin Pearson — running for that seat — was barred from the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting that approved the map. His brother was arrested in the gallery.

The Supreme Court made this possible nine days ago when it gutted Section 2 protections in Louisiana v. Callais. Tennessee is the first state to seize on the ruling. Louisiana — forced back to the drawing board by the same decision — is expected to eliminate one of its two Black-led districts, likely the New Orleans-based seat held by Democrat Troy Carter. Alabama is asking the courts for the same chance. Other Southern states are queued up.

The NAACP has filed for an emergency injunction.

The South is being redrawn. Watch who disappears from the map.