PROBLEM STATEMENTS:

(a) Abuse of governmental power to disenfranchise black voters is an unethical maneuver, morally wrong, and blatantly racially unacceptable.

(b) The Supreme Court ruling opens the gates to discrimination by race in federal, state, and local redistricting. The battle for control of the U.S. House is leading many states to redraw their congressional districts to give one party a political advantage over the other. It's a process known as gerrymandering.

(c) The idea of wholesale redistricting without a new census that would provide population data for how those districts should be drawn has voting rights advocates crying foul.

(d) Democracy is not a game, and our maps should not be either.

(e) District boundaries are more than lines on a map; they shape how neighbors organize, how resources are divided, and how local voices are heard in Washington.

(f) Redistricting in the middle of an election season creates high-stakes, chaotic conditions that threaten electoral integrity, including voter confusion, legal challenges, and logistical nightmares for administrators. It allows parties to manipulate district lines, potentially flipping seats in 2026, but risks "dummymanders" where gerrymanders backfire.

(g) According to several legitimate sources & reports, this trend is particularly active in 2026, with states like Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana facing battles over congressional maps, while Virginia, Michigan, and California explore new alignments. The Supreme Court recently empowered some of these mid-cycle changes, weakening previous protections against racial gerrymandering.

(h) Redlining is the illegal, discriminatory practice of systematically denying financial services such as mortgages, insurance, and loans to residents of specific neighborhoods, primarily based on the race or ethnicity of the inhabitants. Originating in the 1930s, lenders drew "red lines" around minority areas, deeming them high-risk, which caused long-term disinvestment, poverty, and wealth gaps.

(i) Redlining is directly linked to modern racial segregation, the creation of food deserts, lack of healthcare access, and lower life expectancies in formerly redlined areas.

(j) While redlining was essentially codified by government policy in the past, it is now illegal under fair lending laws like the Fair Housing Act.

Disinvestment: Beyond housing, it led to a decline in public funding for schools and infrastructure in marginalized neighborhoods.

Legacy: Despite being outlawed, the historical disinvestment continues to affect property values and economic opportunities in affected communities.

Reverse Redlining: This occurs when lenders specifically target minority neighborhoods for unfair, subprime, or predatory loans.

ATTACK ON NASHVILLE/DAVIDSON COUNTY:

(k) Nashville (Davidson County) is currently divided among multiple U.S. Congressional districts to dilute the city's heavily Democratic voter base into surrounding conservative-leaning counties. While the city was famously split into three districts in previous election cycles, a new congressional map passed in a May 2026 special legislative session splits the greater Nashville area across five U.S. House districts (Districts 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9).

The new congressional map splits the city into the following segments:

• District 4: Covers areas in Southeast Nashville, including the Antioch region.

• District 5: The redrawn district now connects parts of western Williamson County to downtown Memphis, sweeping across several rural counties.

• District 6: Encompasses portions of Davidson County, all of Wilson County, and extends to the east.

• District 7: Covers a substantial portion of Davidson County and extends significantly to the east.

• District 9: Connects a section of Davidson County to rural counties along the Alabama state line.

(l) The Tennessee Legislature passed a new U.S. congressional map that will favor Republicans in all nine of the state’s districts ahead of this year’s midterm election.

ATTACK ON MEMPHIS/SHELBY COUNTY:

1. The City of Memphis is the largest voting bloc in the State of Tennessee.

2. The bill passed and was quickly signed by Gov. Bill Lee, as state lawmakers faced a tight deadline to get the maps approved ahead of the state’s August primary election, set to take place in 90 days. 

3. The new district map divides Shelby County into three districts. District 9, formerly Greater Memphis, now includes parts of Williamson and Maury counties, more than 200 miles away.

4. The new map splits the state’s last majority-minority U.S. House district in Memphis across three seats as Republicans attempt to flip the last Democratic-held district. Democrats are expected to file a lawsuit over the new map, arguing that Republicans are trying to change the rules too close to the election and that the changes were made based on racial demographics.

5. Republicans are creating the new map after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states like Tennessee, with a history of racial discrimination, are no longer required to have majority-minority districts to boost Black voters. For decades, Tennessee’s mapmakers have drawn a congressional district that encompasses all of Memphis, making the predominantly Black city a Democratic-held seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The new map now splits Memphis and Nashville across three congressional districts, similar to how Republicans eliminated Nashville’s Democratic-held seat when the party last drew new seats in 2022. About 63% of voters in the current U.S. House District 9, which includes the whole city of Memphis, are Black.

The redrawn Tennessee congressional map officially splits Shelby County into three distinct U.S. House of Representatives districts: the 5th, 8th, and 9th.

The boundaries for these three districts are split as follows:

• District 5: Covers Downtown Memphis and stretches to include other West Tennessee counties.

• District 8: Contains a portion of Midtown, Bartlett, Millington, and reaches into surrounding suburban areas.

• District 9: Starts in South and East Memphis and wraps into counties along the Mississippi state line.

Consequently, because the lines cut directly through Memphis, many residents now find themselves in new congressional districts.

Dangers of Mid-Cycle Redistricting:

• Electoral Chaos and Disenfranchisement: Changing maps near elections forces election officials to rapidly rebuild ballots and update voting systems, risking voter confusion, disenfranchisement (especially for military/overseas voters), and errors at polling locations.

• Logistical Strain on Local Offices: Sudden map changes cause massive administrative burdens, requiring retraining of poll officials and reprogramming of election management systems.

• Erosion of Democratic Legitimacy: Frequent, aggressive redrawing, such as the recent surge influencing 2026 midterm preparations, dilutes community representation and diminishes public trust in fairness.

• Increased Partisan Polarization: Mid-decade redistricting often targets specific incumbents, often splitting communities of color or packing opposition voters to protect the majority's power, as noted in the Brennan Center for Justice analysis.

• The "Dummymander" Risk: While intended to secure partisan gains, aggressive map changes can backfire. Spreading voters too thin can, ironically, make a party vulnerable to losing seats during an opposing wave, says the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

Atwater's Goal and Strategies:

• Set forth a new Independent Redistricting Reform that takes the map-drawing out of the hands of politicians who allegedly benefit from these maps.

• Day one, I will reset the district maps in Nashville and Memphis. Tennessee.

• Focusing and learning from the dummymandering which Thomas Brunell, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, coined. When this action backfires on a political party, that is what we call a dummymander. Brunell coined the phrase "dummymander" in a gerrymander. The political party that controls redistricting spreads voters of the opposing party among many districts, or packs them into a few districts to dilute their overall voting power. Brunell says a dummymander occurs when the party drawing the new district lines spreads its voters too thin to overcome a wave of support for the opposition party.

• Ensuring that politicians in the State of Tennessee, including the Governor, do not violate the rules of redistricting in the middle of an election to ensure an upper hand on gerrymandering and redlining to punish and react with racial actions against black and brown voters to obtain control or power. Redoing redistricting maps involves a structured process triggered by population shifts or legal challenges, usually occurring after census data release, or by legislative action. The process includes updating maps to ensure roughly equal population numbers across districts, following legal requirements, and adopting the new lines through state legislatures or independent commissions.

• Place matrix and stopgaps to prevent, in this case, such as in Tennessee in 2026, maps can be redrawn outside the typical 10-year cycle to correct for legal flaws or to achieve political shifts.

• Established a working rapport with NAACP, Urban League, ACLU, Equity Alliance, Indivisible, and other social justice groups.Atwater's Steps to Redo Redistricting Maps

  • Redistricting Authority: Procedures vary; some states use commissions, while others allow legislatures to drive the process. As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I will seek to have a new Commission of Redistricting implemented to ensure fairness and inclusion in districts across the State of Tennessee.

  • Data Analysis: Use the latest Census Bureau data to identify population changes and ensure "one person, one vote" compliance.

  • Establish Criteria: Define rules based on legal requirements and traditional principles:

    • Population Balance: Aim for roughly equal population, ideally within 5% of the average district size.

    • Contiguity & Compactness: Ensure all district parts are connected and geographically compact.

    • Communities of Interest: Respect shared community, neighborhood, or professional interests.

    • Voting Rights Act Compliance: Avoid diluting the ability of minority groups to elect representatives (Section 2).

  • Draft New Maps: Utilize mapping software to create new lines, considering whether to use independent commissions or state legislatures.

  • Public Input and Review: Release draft maps to the public and conduct community meetings to receive feedback.

  • Final Adoption: The legislature or commission formally adopts the new map.

  • Legal Review: Ensure the new map can withstand legal challenges regarding gerrymandering or discrimination.