The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, joined by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday morning in the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee challenging the new congressional map enacted by HB 7003. The suit names Governor Bill Lee, Secretary of State Tre Hargett, and the Tennessee Election Commission as defendants. The filing came hours after Governor Lee signed the bill into law Tuesday afternoon.
The lawsuit alleges that the new map, which redraws Tennessee's Ninth Congressional District by splitting Memphis along the Interstate 240 and Poplar Avenue corridor, violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Plaintiffs include the Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP, the Memphis branch of the NAACP, and seven individual Memphis voters. The complaint asks for a preliminary injunction blocking implementation of the new map ahead of the August 6 candidate filing deadline for the 2026 elections.
The Ninth Congressional District has been represented by Representative Steve Cohen since 2007. Under the previous map, the district had a Black voting age population of approximately 64 percent. Under HB 7003, the district's Black voting age population drops to approximately 38 percent, with portions of historically Black neighborhoods in South Memphis and Whitehaven moved into the Eighth District represented by Republican Representative David Kustoff. Plaintiffs argue that the redrawn district dilutes the voting power of Black residents in violation of Section 2.
The Tennessee General Assembly passed HB 7003 on a party-line vote in special session called by Governor Lee on May 4. The House passed the bill 75 to 24 on Tuesday. The Senate passed the bill 27 to 6 on Wednesday morning. Governor Lee signed the bill at 1:47 PM Central time Tuesday inside the Tennessee State Capitol. He held no public signing ceremony.
The legal filing draws extensively on the Supreme Court's April 29, 2026 decision in Callais v. Landry, which narrowed but did not overturn Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent in Callais joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Plaintiffs argue that the Tennessee map, drawn after Callais was decided, falls within the unchanged portions of Section 2 because the evidence of racially polarized voting in Memphis is documented across multiple election cycles.
Memphis Mayor Paul Young and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris issued a joint statement Wednesday morning supporting the lawsuit. "Memphis voters deserve to be heard in Washington," Young said. "This map was drawn to silence Black communities in this city. We are asking the federal courts to restore fair representation."
Representative Cohen, speaking from his Washington office Wednesday morning, said he supports the legal challenge. "I will run wherever the lines fall," Cohen said. "But the lines drawn by this General Assembly are not lines, they are walls, and they are designed to keep Black Memphians from electing the candidate of their choice. The federal courts have addressed this kind of map before. They will address it again."
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti's office declined to comment Wednesday morning, citing the pending litigation. A memorandum prepared by Skrmetti's office and obtained Monday by the Tennessean defended the new map's legality and predicted the state would prevail in any court challenge. Speaker Cameron Sexton's office said in a statement that the General Assembly acted within its constitutional authority and that the new map reflects population shifts in the 2020 census.
Voting rights organizations including the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Common Cause Tennessee, and the Equity Alliance have signaled their intent to file amicus briefs in support of the plaintiffs. A coalition of Memphis area faith leaders held a rally Wednesday morning outside the Lorraine Motel, the site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968. Approximately 800 people attended.
The Brookings Institution's congressional redistricting tracker, updated Wednesday morning, projects that the new Tennessee map will likely shift one congressional seat from Democratic to Republican control in the 2026 midterm elections, contributing to a national projection of four to six additional Republican House seats from mid-decade redistricting in Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. House Republicans currently hold a 222 to 213 majority.
The Western District of Tennessee assigned the case to United States District Judge Sheryl Lipman, a 2014 Obama appointee. Judge Lipman has presided over multiple civil rights cases during her tenure. The first hearing on the preliminary injunction motion is expected within 14 days based on the standard federal court calendar for emergency election-related litigation.
For Memphis voters, the practical question is what district they live in for the 2026 primary on August 4. The Tennessee Election Commission is required to publish the new district lines on its website within seven days of the bill's signing. Voters can verify their district at the election commission website tnsos.gov slash elections starting Wednesday afternoon.
The Department of Justice has not announced any intention to intervene in the case as of Wednesday morning. Civil rights groups have requested DOJ involvement under the Voting Rights Act. The court timeline could move quickly given the August 6 candidate filing deadline. A ruling on the preliminary injunction is expected within 30 to 45 days.
