Tennessee

Tennessee’s congressional and state legislative district lines are drawn by the state legislature, as a regular statute, subject to gubernatorial veto.

Tennessee state law does not impose a particular deadline for drawing either congressional or state legislative lines, though candidates were required to file for congressional and state legislative primary elections by Apr. 7, 2022. [Tenn. Code § 2-5-101(a)(1)]

Tennessee law expressly permits redrawing state legislative lines mid-decade, before the next Census. For congressional lines, a state statute seems to prohibit redrawing the lines mid-decade, though the legislature could alter that statute if it chose. [Tenn. Const. art. II, § 4; French v. Boner, 963 F.2d 890 (6th Cir. 1992); Tenn. Code § 2-16-102]

Like all states, Tennessee must comply with constitutional equal population requirements and must abide by the Voting Rights Act and constitutional rules on race.

For Tennessee’s state legislative lines, the state constitution further requires that districts of more than one county preserve those counties whole where possible.  The state courts have set a high bar for challenges based on this criterion: challengers must prove not only that county splits were unnecessary to comply with federal law, but also that the splits were “not rationally or legitimately related to achieving compliance with federal law.”  [Tenn. Const. art. II, §§ 5-6; Wygant v. Lee, __ S.W.3d __, 2025 WL 3537313, at *36 (Tenn. Dec. 10, 2025)]

The Tennessee legislature passed congressional (SB 781) and state Senate (SB 780) plans on Jan. 24, 2022, and a state House plan (HB 1035) on Jan. 26, 2022; the governor signed all three maps on Feb. 6, 2022.

The congressional and state Senate plans were challenged in federal court, and the state legislative plans were challenged in state court, but those challenges were rejected.  [Tenn. State Conf. of the NAACP v. Lee, 746 F. Supp. 3d 473 (M.D. Tenn. 2024); Wygant v. Lee, __ S.W.3d __, 2025 WL 3537313 (Tenn. Dec. 10, 2025)]

The Tennessee legislature passed congressional (HB 1558) and state House (HB 1555) plans on Jan. 13, 2012, which were signed on Jan. 26, 2012.  The legislature passed a state Senate plan (SB 1514) on Jan. 19, 2012, which was signed on Feb. 9, 2012.

The state Senate plans were challenged in state court, but those challenges were rejected.  [Moore v. Tennessee, 436 S.W.3d 775 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2014)]

The Tennessee legislature passed congressional (HB 274), state Senate (SB 197), and state House (HB 276) plans that were each signed on Jan. 17, 2002.

Though an early challenge to the 1990-cycle districts was filed in federal court in 2001 (and rejected), it does not appear that any of the plans actually passed by the legislature was challenged in court. [Crone v. Darnell, 176 F. Supp. 2d 814 (W.D. Tenn. 2001)]