Plaintiffs won’t revive federal lawsuit over Tennessee’s redistricting maps

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A group of Tennessee voting and civil rights advocates says it won’t refile a federal lawsuit alleging the state’s U.S. House map and boundaries for the state Senate amount to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

In a news release Friday, the plaintiffs whose lawsuit was dismissed last month said their efforts in court were facing “new, substantial and unjust standards to prove racial gerrymandering” under a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that involved South Carolina’s political maps.

When a three-judge panel dismissed the Tennessee lawsuit last month, the judges also gave the plaintiffs time to refile the complaint if they could amend it to “plausibly disentangle race from politics.”

The plaintiffs said they are urging people to vote in the Nov. 5 election, noting the state’s low rankings in turnout. The registration deadline is Oct. 7 and early voting begins Oct. 16.

“We made a difficult decision to forgo further litigation, but this is not a retreat by any means,” Gloria Sweet-Love, president of the Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP, said in the release. “We know we will soon drive out the discrimination and racist practices that silence the voices of too many of us in Tennessee at the ballot box.”

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