Tennessee Republicans strip Democrats from committees after protesting anti-Black gerrymander
Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) removed Democratic lawmakers from House committees Tuesday after they protested the GOP’s newly enacted congressional gerrymander that eliminated the state’s lone majority-Black district.
In a letter to House Minority Leader Karen Camper (D), Sexton said Democratic lawmakers would receive individual letters removing them from committees because of their conduct during last week’s special session, where Republicans repealed a decades-old state ban on mid-decade redistricting and rammed through a new congressional map expected to give the GOP a 9-0 delegation.
“Members of the Democratic Caucus will receive individual letters removing them from all standing committees and subcommittees of the House,” Sexton wrote.
The move appears to punish the entire Democratic caucus for its resistance to the gerrymander — and, according to state Rep. Justin Pearson (D), removes every Black elected official in the Tennessee legislature from the committees they served on.
“Speaker of the TN House Cameron Sexton just removed me and every Democrat — and therefore every Black elected official in the state legislature from any committee we served on,” Pearson wrote on social media. “This move strips nearly 2 million Tennesseans from the representation they deserve in TN state leg.”
Sexton’s letter accused Democrats of “disrupting the democratic and legislative processes and creating disorder on the House Floor” during the special session.
The letter cited several alleged actions by Democratic lawmakers, including “interlocking arms in the well of the House,” “blocking aisles on the House floor” and “the use of prohibited props and noisemakers on the House floor.”
Sexton also accused Democrats of “instigating and encouraging disruptions of the legislative process in coordination with paid protestors and attendees in the gallery, including the distribution of earplugs to a member of your caucus.”
The punishment comes days after Tennessee Republicans passed one of the most aggressive congressional gerrymanders in the country in direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s devastating Callais decision, which gutted key Voting Rights Act protections and opened the door for GOP-led states to dismantle majority-Black districts.
The new Tennessee map splits Memphis — one of the largest predominantly Black cities in the country — across three districts, eliminating the state’s only majority-Black congressional district and likely ending Tennessee’s lone Democratic seat in Congress.
Democrats and civil rights advocates denounced the map throughout last week’s special session as a racist power grab designed to silence Black voters. On the House floor, Democratic lawmakers linked arms in protest as Republican leadership moved quickly to pass the map over fierce objections from lawmakers, protesters and civil rights leaders.
Now, Republicans are seemingly punishing the lawmakers who stood against it.
The committee removals mark a stunning new escalation in Tennessee Republicans’ long-running efforts to discipline Democratic lawmakers who challenge GOP power.
In 2023, Republicans expelled Pearson and state Rep. Justin Jones (D) after they joined gun reform protesters on the House floor following the Covenant School shooting.
Both were later returned to office.
This time, the punishment comes in the middle of a widening legal and political fight over Black representation in Tennessee.
The NAACP filed an emergency lawsuit challenging the legality of the special session itself, arguing Republicans violated Tennessee law and the state constitution when they repealed the ban on mid-decade redistricting and enacted the new map. Additional lawsuits are also seeking to block the map before the 2026 elections.
Tuesday’s move shows Tennessee Republicans are not only defending the gerrymander — they’re now targeting the Democrats who resisted it.
For nearly 2 million Tennesseans represented by House Democrats, the result could be immediate as lawmakers are stripped of committee seats where legislation is shaped, debated and advanced before reaching the full House.
The move deepens the stakes of Tennessee’s post-Callais crisis.
