Stay informed with breaking news updates about voting rights, democracy reform, litigation and legislation.
Tennessee Republicans are moving toward a potential mid-cycle gerrymander that could eliminate the state’s last Democratic congressional seat — targeting a majority-Black district in Memphis in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision gutting the Voting Rights Act.
In addition to the spat of GOP mid-decade gerrymanders already enacted at Trump’s urging, another four Republican states could redraw maps to gain upwards of nine House seats — that’s in addition to the nine Republicans already added thanks to redistricting in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri and Ohio.
Louisiana officials made clear Thursday that the state’s primaries will be postponed so lawmakers can draw a new congressional map in response to Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act.
A Tennessee state judge dealt a blow to President Donald Trump’s effort to use soldiers in policing by temporarily halting Gov. Bill Lee’s (R) deployment of Tennessee National Guard troops to Memphis to assist with the Trump administration’s law enforcement surge in the city.
On Tuesday, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will hear oral argument over a Tennessee policy requiring individuals with prior felony convictions to produce additional documents to prove eligibility when registering to vote. A district court last year said the policy violated federal law.
A federal judge today dismissed a lawsuit from voting rights organizations challenging a Tennessee statute requiring voters to be “bona fide” members of a political party in order to cast a ballot in the state’s open primary elections or otherwise face a threat of criminal prosecution.
Over a year after the Republican-controlled Tennessee Legislature attempted to shrink the size of Nashville’s Metro Council from 40 to 20 members, a state court has blocked that plan for good.
Civil rights advocates are now threatening to sue Republican Secretary of State Tre Hargett over the letters.
A few months after a federal judge blocked Tennessee from wrongfully denying people with past felony convictions of their right to vote, a conservative panel on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has paused the decision.
Tennessee election officials sent letters this month to over 14,000 individuals asking them to verify their U.S. citizenship in what one Democratic state legislator is calling an attempt to intimidate voters.