Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps on Thursday, eliminating the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.
The move cracks Tennessee’s ninth congressional district, which covers Memphis, into three pieces, each of which contains almost exactly a third of the city’s Black voters. The new maps mean that all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning.
My wife’s cousin gave an opening speech for Bernie Sanders when he was in town. Part of what he said is that the oligarchs want us to not have hope; to be resigned to whatever they want to happen. Maybe this isn’t quite what he meant, but I think there’s something to that line of thinking.