NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Republican governors of Tennessee and Alabama called state lawmakers into special sessions on Friday, setting up a fast-moving fight over House maps in two states as election deadlines close in.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee convened a special session that will start Tuesday, while Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey called lawmakers back beginning Monday. Lee said legislators “owe it to Tennesseans to ensure our congressional districts accurately reflect the will of Tennessee voters,” and said any changes to the state’s map “must be enacted as soon as possible.”
The pressure is immediate in Tennessee. Primaries are scheduled for Aug. 6 in this year’s congressional elections, and the deadline for candidates to qualify for the ballot passed in March. Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn has urged lawmakers to draw a map that gives Republicans an edge in all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts, including splitting up the Memphis-area district held by Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen. President Trump also pressed Lee to redraw the map to give Republicans “one extra seat.”
Alabama’s timetable is even tighter. Its primaries are set for May 19, and the deadline for candidates to file was in January. Ivey said she wants the state to be “prepared should the courts act quickly enough” for the House map to be changed in time for this year’s elections, and said she is aiming to return to the legislature’s 2023 map if the courts allow it.
Alabama has spent years locked in litigation over its congressional districts. The Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that the state’s House map violated the Voting Rights Act. Later that year, a three-judge panel rejected another map written by lawmakers, and a court-appointed expert drew a new one that created two House districts where Black voters make up a significant share of the electorate; both are now held by Democrats. Under a court injunction issued last year, Alabama’s current map must stay in place until after the 2030 Census.
The latest scramble comes after the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision Wednesday in Louisiana v. Callais, a ruling that narrowed part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and could affect how districts are drawn in states beyond Louisiana when minority groups make up a majority in some circumstances. Louisiana officials moved Thursday to suspend House primaries scheduled for later this month, and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the Supreme Court the same day to vacate the lower court ruling that struck down lawmakers’ 2023 map.
For Tennessee, the deadline pressure and Blackburn’s demands point toward a broader Republican push to squeeze more seats out of a state that already favors the party heavily. For Alabama, the question is narrower and more urgent: whether the courts move fast enough to let lawmakers replace a map that has already survived one round of appeals and still sits under injunction. Lee and Ivey have both moved before the legal ground beneath them settles, and the next few days will decide whether either state can change its districts before voters start casting ballots.
