Tennessee Republicans are poised to split up the Democrat-heavy congressional district in Nashville as they redraw Tennessee’s congressional map, further diluting what little power Democrats have in the state.
The 5th Congressional District, which is centered on Nashville, is reliably blue and is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN).
U.S. House Democrats have only two Tennessee representatives against the GOP’s seven. With Nashville split up, the Republicans’ advantage would tick up 8–1, as the Tennesseean noted.
Cooper slammed the planned gerrymander, which is being headed by state House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R), as “an insult to all Nashvillians” that is “likely to backfire” on the GOP.
“It’s not conservative to split a county that’s been whole for 240 years,” he said in a statement to the Tennessean and the Associated Press. “The speaker is not splitting his home county, so he can’t be serious when he claims it’s good for Nashville.”
Odessa Kelly, Cooper’s primary challenger, called out the racist element of Republicans cutting up Nashville’s voting district, which has a heavy Black population, to “protect power for a conservative white majority.”
Details of the newly drawn lines are unknown at the moment, but Sexton told the AP that it could involve “two or three” splits of the current district. The map will be unveiled on Wednesday, the Tennessean and the AP report.
The state Republicans’ plan comes amid President Joe Biden’s renewed push for voting rights reform this week, including a speech in Atlanta, Georgia on Tuesday.
Look, if God wanted these people to get representation, he would have made them Republicans to start with.
I wonder if these folks had a look at what the Texas legislature has been doing to Austin for the past couple of redistrictings. Very similar strategy.
ETA: Here in Kansas, redistricting is on the legislative agenda, and there’s speculation that the GOP will try to re-draw the boundaries of KS-3 (Kansas City metro area), which elected Sharice Davids, Kansas’ only Dem congresswoman.
ETA (2): An interesting article on intra-GOP dilemmas in Missouri regarding their own redistricting. The pressure to draw a 7-1 map instead of tinkering with the present 6-2 one is coming from pro-life people who want a Congress more favorable to passing laws restricting/banning abortion, but GOPers (currently) need Dem votes to approve the maps thanks to Gov. Parson’s not having filled GOP vacancies in the state legislature:
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article257196887.html
Wait, what? Didn’t blacks go for the Party of Lincoln back in the day? I guess that whole Southern Strategy wasn’t perfect.
Well, you know how it is. There’s the Party of Lincoln, and there’s the GQP.
Lincoln would be criticized by them and called a socialist for his “big spending” “large government” programs such as the transcontinental railroad and the Morrill act which created land grant colleges as well as creating the academy of science.
They’d also gripe about him being too close to the Blacks particulate that “radical Douglass”.