EMERGENCY LAWSUIT filed amid court decision

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]I'm joined now by General Counsel for NAACP, Kristen Clark. Thanks so much for taking the time.

[00:00:04]Thank you for having me. So, we have some news here in light of the fact that not only has the Supreme Court struck down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, but now Tennessee is the first state to redraw their maps to eliminate the only black opportunity district in that state. Um the NAACP has sued. So, can you first off give give some information as to what the legal basis for this lawsuit is, given the fact that it it seems at least from from, you know, the the general public's vantage, that with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act struck down, there is no more justification or or requirement, I should say, uh for states to even have black opportunity districts?

[00:00:39]Yeah. Well, first, today was a dark day in American democracy. Uh the the Senate and House floor votes that led to eventual dismantling of the only majority black congressional district in Tennessee was just disastrous. And, you know, this comes just a few days after the Supreme Court's ruling that really put the death knell in the Voting Rights Act. At the NAACP, we are committed to using every tool available to fight back and to stand up for voters and to make sure that every American, every citizen in Tennessee has an equal voice in the electoral process. And so, what we did today is we filed suit in state court.

[00:01:21]The government the governor called a special session an extraordinary session in order to pull the legislature back to redraw the maps.

[00:01:31]Under state law, that proclamation has to be very specific and clear. And the proclamation called lawmakers back to redraw the boundary lines of maps, but they did a lot more. There is a well, a law that's been on the books that stretches back five decades that actually makes mid-decade redistricting illegal, unlawful. And so, So had to take action with respect to that law.

[00:01:57]They also did something else unusual.

[00:01:59]They waived the residency requirement for 1 year for people who are going to be running under the districts carved out in this new map. It's our position that the proclamation should have included these very two significant and important actions and because the governor didn't include those two additional actions, this session was unlawful. That they the map should be discarded and that they should start back from square one. And starting back from square one, I I think should be leaving the status quo in place. There's no reason that Tennessee needs to do this. Yeah, well, other than to eliminate as quickly as possible any any representation for the state's only black opportunity district.

[00:02:41]Given the fact that this is so that that this is so urgent right now, you know, we have midterms coming up so quickly. Are you seeking a preliminary injunction? How fast do you expect this process to move?

[00:02:53]We think it will move very fast and so stay tuned. It's why we did not delay and we moved very swiftly to file our lawsuit just hours after the maps were passed through the legislature, but we're really tracking very closely what's happening across the South. You know, Tennessee clearly wanted to be at the start of the the tidal wave here, but it is a dark moment in American democracy where we see state officials taking bold and unprecedented action to disenfranchise black American citizens.

[00:03:31]And and it's not just in Tennessee. I mean, we're looking at this process playing itself out in Alabama, in Louisiana where the Kelle decision first originated from, in South Carolina where the only representative black representative in that state is is Jim Clyburn. You know, I I had spoken about this issue on air on NewsNation with Katie Pavlich and she has echoed this this right-wing talking point that the Supreme Court decision effectively desegregated the South because now you don't have districts that were brought that were drawn expressly for uh for black Americans or brown Americans. And so, what would your response to that talking point from the right be?

[00:04:05]Well, it's interesting that we're not talking about, you know, a different part of the country. We are talking about the South for a reason because sadly, this is the part of the country that has a very long and egregious and undeniable history of discrimination when it comes to giving black American citizens access to the franchise. So, it it is not surprising that this is the part of the country that is proving to be ground zero as we see this mass disinfrant mass disenfranchisement campaign unfold on the heels of the Supreme Court's ruling.

[00:04:39]The Voting Rights Act is uh was one of our nation's truly most important federal civil rights law. And it just helped to to push to really nudge our country in the right direction. And that nudge, that movement really proved to be most important in the South, which is the part of the country sadly that had been most resistant and and hostile when it came to opening up the doors of democracy to everyone.

[00:05:05]You know, this I'm I'm sure that that the the feeling coming out of this moment is that this is kind of a a retrenchment of Jim Crow. Is that Is that what it feels like from your vantage? And I guess as a follow-up to that, what do you say to folks who see things moving so sharply in the wrong direction so that they can, you know, have some sense of hope as we move forward and not just completely give up in despair?

[00:05:31]You know, um Senator uh Oliver in the um Tennessee legislature stood up on a table and held up a big banner that said Jim Crow 2.0. Yeah. Um you know, I think that is precisely where we are, but it's not the frame that I like to think about this moment in. I think about this being an opportunity for Americans to come together and and and say that this is not the direction we need to be moving as a country. And some of the, you know, crowds that we saw at the capital today in Tennessee were multiracial and intergenerational.

[00:06:07]And I I, you know, I truly believe deep down that this is an opportunity for us to dig deep and just say that this is not the America that we want in 2026 and it's why we're committed to being really bold and aggressive using the courts as a way to to fight back and move us back in a different direction.

[00:06:24]In thinking about this from a longer-term perspective, I think the ultimate goal is to bring about another voting rights act to replace the one that the Supreme Court just struck down.

[00:06:33]Of course, a million things have to go right. Democrats have to win the House, Democrats have to win the Senate, Democrats have to win the White House, the filibuster has to be eliminated so that we can actually pass some legislation without having to meet that 60-vote threshold in the Senate. And then, of course, there has to be enough support for some iteration of a Voting Rights Act. But at the end of that line, there's still a Supreme Court, a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court waiting in the wings to do exactly what it just did this past week by striking that legislation down. And so, we could play Whac-A-Mole and continue trying to hope that everything goes right, pass legislation only for the Supreme Court, you know, this rogue branch of government to have the final say. That doesn't feel like it's like it's, you know, a tenable situation. And so, taking kind of like a 30,000-ft view of this, what do you think is the solution here so that we're not just kind of treading treading treading water?

[00:07:23]Supreme Court reform has to be a part of the conversation about how we get democracy back on track. We have to figure out a way to restore balance to a court that is so clearly, I'm not going to say putting its thumb on the scale, putting its fist on the scale of one political party right now. Yeah. We have to talk about term limits. We have to talk about jurisdiction stripping measures that maybe keep certain cases out of the hands of the Supreme Court.

[00:07:48]Um we have to talk about ethics reform.

[00:07:50]So, as we talk about state voting rights act and bold election reforms that can help ensure that we all have voice in our democracy, court reform has to be a part of the discussion and dialogue for sure. And and I'm glad you said all those things and I I'm also glad that this conversation is happening right now so that if and when, and I truly believe this is a matter of when, Democrats do take power again, we don't waste precious time negotiating this stuff, but instead we're having these conversations right now so that we can hit the ground running when we actually do have some power to wield. Um to that end, I want to end with this. What would be some calls to action? What can can folks do um so that again, we're not just kind of marinating in in um in despair, but rather taking some affirmative steps uh you know, in the right direction.

[00:08:33]Yeah, it's a sobering moment, right?

[00:08:35]Dust your shoulders off. I think we have to vote like we have never voted before.

[00:08:41]Um we need to make sure we're turning out in every local election, primary election, special election, voting up and down the ballot, making sure all of those around us are ready to vote and have a plan to vote. We need to be dreaming big and thinking about reform, not just at the federal level, but at the state level. We've seen states like New Jersey and Maryland adopt state voting rights act and I think that that is a very hopeful path forward. And um we need to be dreaming about the democracy that we all deserve um at the end of this. It It is I I think um very clear that we didn't have the right guardrails in place for the American democracy we find ourselves in now. And so, do we need to amend our Constitution? You know, what are the new civil rights laws that we need for a world where you know, we're contending with AI and you know, over-concentration of wealth at