A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Tennessee Democrats challenging the new state House and state Senate districts. A challenge to the new congressional district lines has not yet been filed.
The lawsuit was filed in the Chancery Court of Tennessee for the 20th Judicial district. Akilah Moore, Telise Turner, and Gary Wygant are listed as the filing parties in the case. Governor Bill Lee, Secretary of State Tre Hargett, and Tennessee Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins are being sued in their official capacities only.
Moore, Turner, and Wygant are described in the lawsuit as being residents of Davidson, Shelby, and Gibson counties respectively.
In its prayer for relief, the suit asks for the court to declare that the state House and Senate violated the Tennessee Constitution, to stop the enforcement of the new boundaries, grant an injunction barring new elections under those maps, and give the Tennessee General Assembly 15 days to remedy described constitutional defects.
The lawsuit also asks that the court impose interim maps if the General Assembly fails to meet the 15-day deadline and to extend the April 7 deadline for legislative qualifying petitions and candidate filing.
The lawsuit was e-filed on Wednesday.
The complaint alleges the new maps for the state House and state Senate were drawn to give the Republicans in the legislature the highest possible advantage without any input from Democrat legislators.
Over the course of approximately two weeks in January 2022, the Tennessee General Assembly engaged in an unprecedented reapportionment of voters, redrawing state House and Senate maps to ensure maximum partisan advantage for the incumbent Republican supermajority. Redistricting decisions were made largely out of view of the public and largely without input from representatives of the minority party. These one-sided decisions denied voters any real opportunity to participate in – much less stop – fundamental changes to the process through which Tennessee voters choose their elected representatives.
The plaintiffs also allege that the enacted maps violate the Tennessee constitution by dividing more counties than necessary for the state House maps and not numbering the state Senate districts consecutively.
Crucially for purposes of this lawsuit, the Tennessee General Assembly supermajority and Governor Bill Lee ignored the plain, unambiguous text of the Tennessee Constitution in order to enact their partisan redistricting scheme. They did so in two ways: first, by dividing more counties than necessary to create House districts with roughly equal populations, and second, by numbering state senatorial districts nonconsecutively. These actions both contravene the language of the Tennessee Constitution.
Tennessee Democrat Party Chair Hendrell Remus sent out a fundraising email a few hours after the lawsuit was filed. The email stated that the Tennessee Democrats were funding the lawsuit.
Litigation against the Tennessee Republican Party for their illegal district lines was just filed. Tennesseans who have been affected by these maps will be the plaintiffs, and thanks to you, we are footing the bill for the lawsuit. We plan to build on the success that Democrats have had in both Ohio and North Carolina in overturning their gerrymandered maps.
The email also accuses Republicans of rigging the maps and follows up with an ask for money to fund the lawsuit.
The Tennessee Democrat Party has repeatedly accused the Republicans in the House and Senate, as well as Lee, of enacting illegal and racially gerrymandered maps into law.
[wonderplugin_pdf src=”https://thestarnewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/560946884-Tennessee-Democrats-file-gerrymandering-lawsuit.pdf” width=”650″ height=”866px” style=”border:0;”]
– – –
Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR.
