by Sarah Grace Taylor, Nashville Banner
May 7, 2026
Listen to Banner reporters recap the special session
The smell of a burned Confederate flag lingered in the halls of the Tennessee State Capitol Thursday afternoon as the Republican Supermajority legislature passed a historic, unprecedented and heretofore illegal Congressional redistricting map, reopening historical wounds from racially motivated voter suppression in the South.
Lawmaker walkouts and demonstrations in both chambers marked the frenetic final day of a three-day special legislative session, with troopers arresting protesters and a general revolt against the division of predominantly Black Memphis into three Congressional districts. Despite comparisons to Jim Crow and the Confederacy, House and Senate Republicans cleared a set of legislation that undid a 1970s law prohibiting mid-cycle redistricting and then approved an overhauled Congressional map that was introduced just one day before final passage.
President Donald Trump and Sen. Marsha Blackburn urged Gov. Bill Lee to call a special session last week to pass an unheard-of redistricting map in the middle of an election cycle, ahead of the November midterms. Republicans at all levels claimed the redistricting was designed to give Republicans a shot at winning Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, which encompassed the whole of Memphis, and has historically voted Democratic.
Opponents argued that the map, which split Black voters into almost exact thirds and came on the heels of a Supreme Court decision to gut the racial protections in the Voting Rights Act, deliberately targeted Black voters in Memphis and Bartlett.
Republicans stuck to the party line in both chambers, working to push the bills through quickly on Thursday, while Democratic lawmakers walked out of floor sessions and one torched a printout of the Confederate flag in protest of the redistricting.
Protests, arrests
Protests began before any legislative meetings, with hundreds packed in the hallways between the chambers and booing Republican lawmakers, continuing three days of pushback over the sudden redistricting.
House Speaker Cameron Sexton was quick to chastise members of the public, threatening to clear the entire gallery over brief clapping in agreement with a lawmaker. Less than an hour into the meeting, Sexton ordered troopers to remove the public over a hissing sound.
At first, troopers didn’t respond, but the Tennessee Highway Patrol ultimately began clearing people from the East balcony. Three arrests were made.
About a quarter of the people in the balcony tried to stay as Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) came into the crowd, gesturing to and communicating with Minority Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville), who questioned the speaker’s authority to remove the crowd.
The clerk affirmed Sexton’s authority to clear the crowd, and the speaker had lawmakers continue business as the protesters were removed.
Several sounded personal alarms to disrupt the floor session, which they told the Banner was intended to “sound the alarm” on the illegal redistricting.
State troopers arrested three people for refusing to leave. The West balcony was cleared about an hour later. When the Senate gallery was cleared later, activists left alarms under the seats, and troopers had to scrounge to find and disable them.
One of the protesters arrested was KeShaun Pearson, the brother of Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis), who was previously expelled from the House in 2023 for protesting on the floor for gun control. Justin Pearson is currently running for Congress in the 9th Congressional District, which would be most disrupted by the redistricting.
Tensions on the floor
Tensions were also clear between lawmakers from the outset of the meeting. Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) at one point handed a printout of a Confederate flag to House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) and repeatedly accused the Republican supermajority of resembling the Ku Klux Klan, calling them the “white sheet caucus.” When Jones said the House was operating under Jim Crow rules, the speaker giggled in the well.
Lamberth crumpled the paper and threw it on Clemmons’ desk. Clemmons and Lamberth got in a brief, inaudible argument.
Eventually, the House Democratic Caucus walked off the floor, and Republicans passed the legislation.
In the hallway, surrounded by protesters, Jones burned another printout of a Confederate flag, marking a distinct flare in protester volume.
Senators waited on the floor to take up the same policies.
Senate Democratic Caucus Chair London Lamar (D-Memphis) was visibly tearing up on the floor before she admonished her Republican colleagues for bending to the whims of Blackburn and Trump, rather than defending voting rights.
“This is how democracy dies in our face. It’s not always with violence in the street. It is those secret meetings you have in the back of your rooms,” Lamar said of the lack of transparency and process around the redistricting.
“You may have the votes to pass this map, but you don’t have the moral authority to do what’s right,” Lamar continued.
The Day in Pictures
Security became visibly alert toward the end of Lamar’s comments as Minority Leader Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) prepared to speak, and the crowd outside grew louder until Akbari asked them to be quieter to allow discussion.
In the House, Rep. Vincent Dixie (D-Nashville) said that if the same lawmakers had power in the 1960s, Black people would never have achieved the right to vote. Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) called the meeting a “white power rally and a white power grab.”
Republicans in both chambers offered minimal comments, sticking to the argument that it was a partisan decision.
Sen. Lamar threatened further backlash toward Republicans in response to the bill, and multiple organizations and 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) have threatened to sue over the map.
“A storm will come today. The repercussions of your decision will be felt for centuries. Your vote today will forever be carved in the history of this state,” Lamar warned.
Ahead of the vote on the primary redistricting bill, Senate Democrats, who all dressed in white to honor suffrage, took to the center of the floor, shouting, among other things, “don’t do this.”
Sen. Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville) climbed on her desk and unfurled a white sheet reading “No Jim Crow 2.0 Stop the Steal,” which was later physically torn from her hands as she resisted Senate security. Oliver continued to clap, stomp and sing from her desk as the Senate voted to pass the bill.
Republican senators lurked in the back of the chamber for several minutes as their colleagues demonstrated. Some, like Sen. Bo Watson (R-Hixson), laughed, while others, like Sen. Dawn White (R-Murfreesboro), were visibly angry at the disruption. Lt. Gov. Randy McNally feverishly banged his gavel, but was ignored.
After adjournment, when they eventually left the floor, Democrats from both chambers wept and raised their fists, forming a group hug in the hall as protesters cheered for them.
Lamar said Memphis will not give up and will fight the redistricting in court. By 4 p.m., the NAACP filed in Davidson County Chancery Court asking for an emergency injunction against the changes to the map. Pearson told the Banner his brother had already been released and returned to the Capitol.
Democrats ended the session with a press conference denouncing the disrespect from their peers and vowing to respond at the polls.
Republicans left without addressing the press or the public. Sen. Brent Taylor (R-Memphis) filed paperwork to run for the newly reconfigured 9th Congressional District before he voted on the map.
The state and local election commissions will now scramble to rewrite election materials ahead of the August primary and November general elections.
Republicans also passed a bill allocating $3.15 million for the Secretary of State to reimburse local election officials for expenses related to revising districts within the election timeframe, including updating the voting system program, ballots and voter rolls. It also allows an unknown amount of money to be spent on legislative costs, including per diem and other expenses incurred by calling lawmakers into session.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
