The threat to Democracy behind the farce in Tennessee

On March 30, a few days after a mass shooting in the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee lawmakers Justin Jones (D-Nashville), Justin Pearson (D-Memphis), and Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) walked to the well of the Tennessee House of Representatives and — without being formally recognized — led peaceful protesters in chants demanding gun control legislation.

Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) summarily revoked their access to the State Capitol building and stripped Jones and Pearson of their committee assignments. Republicans call their action an “insurrection.” After a hastily arranged trial on April 6, the two Black men were expelled from the House for violating rules of decorum and procedure.

Asked why she survived this punishment, albeit by one vote short of the required two-thirds majority, Johnson declared: “It might have something to do with the color of our skin.”

Expulsion from the House, which had occurred in Tennessee only twice since 1866, Johnson added, was a “farce of democracy.”

Behind the farce is gerrymandering, an existential threat to democracy that helped Republicans secure their supermajority in the Tennessee House of Representatives.

Entrenched in many states, gerrymandering is intensifying political polarization and making a mockery of the fundamental principle that every vote should have equal weight.

Tennessee, to be sure, is a red state. In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney got more than 59 percent of the presidential vote. In 2020, Donald Trump did even better, with almost 61 percent. That said, Republicans occupy far more than 60 percent of the seats in the state legislature and the U.S. Congress.

Following the 2010 census, the Tennessee legislature drew new maps for the state Senate, General Assembly House of Representatives, and U.S. Congress. Adopted in January 2012, the maps altered the districts of six incumbent state House Democrats while creating six new districts without a current resident legislator. Eight incumbent Democrats were pushed into four districts (to run against each other or retire). Two incumbent Democrats had to square off against incumbent Republicans in districts that favored the GOP.

Not surprisingly, in the 2012 election, Republicans gained seven seats in the Tennessee House (from 64 to 71), Democrats lost seven (from 34 to 27), with one independent. In the state Senate, Republicans gained six seats (from 20 to 27), while Democrats lost six (from 13 to seven).

Another set of maps, adopted in 2022, left Republicans with a 73-26 advantage over Democrats in the state House, and a 27-6 advantage in the state Senate. For the U.S. Congress, which had sent five Democrats and four Republicans to Washington D.C. before 2010, and seven Republicans and two Democrats a few years later, the Republican legislature added so many conservative rural counties to  the 5^th district, which had been comprised of predominantly Democratic Nashville, that long-time incumbent Jim Cooper announced his retirement. “Gerrymandering,” he declared, “is an extinction event for Nashville.” Tennessee’s Congressional delegation now has eight Republicans and one Democrat.

Tennessee, of course, is one of many states whose legislators use gerrymandering to pre-determine election outcomes. In North Carolina, a purple state with a Democratic governor, the House of Representatives has 72 Republicans and 48 Democrats.

Of the 435 members of the U.S. Congress, all but a few dozen have “safe seats.” In Wisconsin, which Joe Biden carried in 2020, the Congressional delegation consists of 6 Republicans and 2 Democrats. Used recently by Democrats as well, partly because refusing to do so meant unilateral disarmament in the face of a GOP onslaught, gerrymandering, according to one study, gives Republicans a net 16-17 seat advantage in the House of Representatives.

To make matters worse, in 2019 the U.S. Supreme Court gave gerrymandering a free pass. Writing for a 5-4 majority in Rucho v. Common Cause, Chief Justice Roberts decreed that the High Court should play no role over redistricting maps drawn to advance partisan political interests because “no discernible manageable standards” can establish whether they are constitutional and such gerrymandering raises “political questions beyond the reach of federal courts.”

Although Roberts insisted the decision did not “condemn complaints about districting to echo in a void,” he left opponents of gerrymandering with few viable options.

Legislators, who benefit from gerrymandering, are not likely to reverse course. Nor can reformers always count on state courts. In February, 2022, for example, in a 4-3 decision, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down a redistricting plan that would have all but guaranteed Republicans 11 of 14 seats in the U.S. Congress. The state legislature, which thanks to gerrymandering, already has a substantial majority of Republicans, has submitted a similar plan, headed back to the North Carolina Supreme Court, which now has five conservative justices and appears inclined to approve it.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case, also originating in North Carolina, in which appellants maintain that state legislatures have exclusive power over elections. If the Court accepts this theory, which seems unlikely but not impossible, the judiciary will no longer have the authority to assess the constitutionality of redistricting maps drawn by state legislatures.

In any event, those who believe gerrymandering poses an existential threat to democracy have their work cut out for them. They must rouse their fellow Americans to the clear and present danger of this pernicious partisan practice. They must apply maximum political pressure to adopt amendments to state constitutions authorizing independent commissions to draw district maps after every census. And they must name, shame, and organize protests against gerrymandering legislators, with safe seats and supermajorities, starting with the individuals who expelled two “uppity” Black colleagues because they participated in a demonstration on the House floor by citizens desperate to reduce gun violence.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He is the co-author (with Stuart Blumin) of “Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century.”