TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Azya Thornton on Jul 11, 2025

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund on Monday dismissed its lawsuit challenging Fayette County’s 2021 electoral map as discriminatory after county lawmakers passed a new map that complies with the Voting Rights Act and U.S. Constitution, the Tennessee Lookout reports. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee in February, claimed the map adopted by the county commission in 2021 was chosen “at least in part with the intent to racially discriminate against Black voters.” The Tennessee comptroller’s local redistricting guide requires county legislative bodies to consider minority representation when redistricting. Black voters make up more than 25% of Fayette County’s population, but the 19-member county commission is entirely white. Fayette County rejected the allegations in the federal lawsuit but opted to review and revise the map. The commission unanimously approved a new electoral map with three majority-Black, single-member districts, which will be used in the 2026 election cycle. The federal lawsuit’s status is unclear, as the last court-ordered status update was submitted June 23, one day before the commission adopted the new map.