On May 4, four bills were introduced in the Tennessee legislature to draw new U.S. House district boundaries, HB 7001, 7002, 7003, and 7005. The bills also extend the petition deadline for independent candidates for U.S. House from March 10 to May 15. Furthermore, they provide that signatures may be collected anywhere in any county that is in the new district, regardless of whether the signer lives in the new district. Only 25 signatures are needed for independent candidates for either house of Congress.

As to independent candidates who were already on the ballot, the Secretary of State is giving each of them a chance to choose which district to run in, without the need for a new petition.

The Tennessee redistricting has already been attacked by at least three lawsuits.

An independent candidate who was already on the ballot, Pamela Moses, filed a federal lawsuit arguing that changing the districts at this point violates due process. She says that she had already been campaigning in the old district (the 8th) for two years, and the new districts will mean that she has wasted a large share of her campaign resources. She had obtained the list of registered voters in the old district and had reached out to them, but now much of that is wasted effort. Moses v Lee, w.d., 2:26cv-2533, filed May 8. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Mark S. Norris, a Trump appointee.

Here is the story.

Currently, Mississippi has three Republicans and one Democrat (Bennie Thompson) in the US House. Undoubtedly, redistricting would do away with the Democratic district rather easily.

On May 8, the Virginia Supreme Court voted 4-3 to strike down the constitutional amendment the voters had approved on April 21 that redrew the U.S. House district boundaries. Here’s a story.

Here is the decision in Scott v McDougle, 260127. The basis for the decision is that the Constitution requires the legislature, when amending the state Constitution, to pass the measure twice, with an intervening legislative election in between the two legislative votes. The rationale is that first the legislature passes the idea, then the voters have a chance to choose legislators and presumably react to what the old legislature had done relative to the proposed amendment, and then the new legislative session votes on the same idea again.

In this case, the legislature passed the amendment the first time in late October, at a time when 40% of the voters had already case early votes in the legislative election. The Court majority felt this is illegitimate. They felt that the first legislative vote should have been held before any of the voters had cast their votes on legislative candidates.