{"id":111642,"date":"2023-04-12T02:47:29","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T02:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=111642"},"modified":"2023-04-12T02:47:31","modified_gmt":"2023-04-12T02:47:31","slug":"how-redistricting-brought-tennessee-to-this-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=111642","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;How redistricting brought Tennessee to this moment&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/politics-news\/redistricting-brought-tennessee-moment-rcna78953\" target=\"_blank\">NBC News<\/a>: &#8220;\u201cOver the past few years, too many in the Republican Party have employed a series of strategies to suppress the voice of the people, from partisan and racial gerrymandering to voter suppression to outright intimidation,&#8221; former Attorney General Eric Holder, who now leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in a statement.\u00a0&#8220;Now, without any pretense of justification, they are in Tennessee removing duly elected Democratic lawmakers from office.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Those efforts \u201cwould not be possible without first rigging the electoral maps to prevent free and fair elections where the will of the people might be fully expressed,\u201d added Holder, who&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/democraticredistricting.com\/icymi-eric-holder-provides-legal-counsel-to-tn-state-rep-justin-jones\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a>&nbsp;Monday he was providing one of the two Democratic lawmakers who were expelled, Justin Jones, with legal counsel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just last year, the state Assembly \u2014 which Republicans control with a supermajority \u2014&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/elections\/democrats-see-nashville-crosshairs-gop-plans-new-congressional-maps-n1279991\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sliced the one<\/a>&nbsp;solidly Democratic congressional district that had for decades encompassed all of Nashville, into multiple new districts that are all&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/02\/18\/us\/nashville-gerrymandering-republican-democrat.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">now solidly red.<\/a>&nbsp;(The new map helped Republicans pick up a seat in the state\u2019s congressional delegation; they now outnumber Democrats 8 to 1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And this year, Republicans in the state House, led by Majority Leader William Lamberth, moved legislation to cut the 40-seat Nashville city council \u2014 known as the Metropolitan Council \u2014 in half to 20. (State<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/politics-news\/judges-block-tennessee-move-cut-nashville-council-half-rcna79092\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u00a0judges blocked that\u00a0<\/a>effort temporarily on Monday.) Democrats in the state have pointed to the fact that voters already rejected a measure \u2014 in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ballotpedia.org\/Nashville-Davidson_Metro_Council_Member_Reduction_and_Term_Limit_Extension_Ballot_Initiative,_Amendment_2_(August_2015)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a 2015 referendum\u00a0<\/a>\u2014 that would have accomplished a similar result, noting that shrinking the council would result in the most diverse neighborhoods in the city losing exclusive representation.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NBC News: &#8220;\u201cOver the past few years, too many in the Republican Party have employed a series of strategies to suppress the voice of the people, from partisan and racial gerrymandering to voter suppression to outright intimidation,&#8221; former Attorney General Eric Holder, who now leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in a statement.\u00a0&#8220;Now, without&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111643,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111642\/revisions\/111643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}