NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — As civil rights advocates protest, Republican lawmakers in several Southern states are seizing on the opportunity afforded by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to redraw congressional districts ahead of the November midterm elections.

The latest state to jump on the redistricting bandwagon is Tennessee, where a special legislative session is to begin Tuesday, a day after a similar session kicked off in Alabama. In Louisiana, lawmakers are making plans for new U.S. House districts after the Supreme Court last week struck down the state’s current map.

The high court’s ruling said Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The ruling significantly altered a decades-old understanding of the law and provided grounds for Republicans in various states to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.

Its impact on congressional representation, specifically for Black Americans, is threatening to undo decades of progress to ensure minority voting rights.

President Donald Trump has been encouraging more states to join in redistricting as Republicans seek to hold on to their narrow House majority in this year’s elections.

Alabama special session draws protests

Several hundred people protested on Monday shortly before Alabama’s special session began, including some carrying signs declaring “No new map” and “We fight back! Black Voters Matter.”

Opponents of the redistricting session gathered across the street from the historic Alabama Capitol, where the Confederacy was formed in 1861 and where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a crowd of thousands after the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.

“Much blood, sweat and tears was shed in an effort for us to gain the right to vote,” said Sheyann Webb-Christburg, who as a child participated in the 1965 Bloody Sunday voting rights march in Selma. “In 2026, there are still people who are still not exercising that right to vote, and we are still fighting today, even in an effort to keep our right to vote.”

Republican Gov. Kay Ivey called legislators into a special session to consider contingency plans for special primary elections in hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will let Alabama switch congressional maps ahead of the November midterms.

A three-judge federal panel previously ordered Alabama to use a court-selected map — with a second district that has a substantial number of Black voters — until a new map is drafted after the 2030 Census. Alabama appealed that decision and has asked the court, in light of the Louisiana ruling, to let it revert to a 2023 map drawn by Republican state lawmakers. That map could give Republicans a better chance of winning at least one of the two seats currently held by Black Democratic lawmakers.

“This is the voice of the people,” Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said while promoting the Republican plan. “We had three judges determine how five million people were supposed to vote, and I don’t think that’s the way.”

At a town hall held by a pro-Democratic group, Doug Jones, a former U.S. senator who is running for governor as a Democrat, said Alabama was “ground zero for voting rights, and we are going to be ground zero to make sure we retain those voting rights.”

Tennessee plan targets Memphis district

Republican Gov. Bill Lee called Tennessee lawmakers into a special session to consider a plan that could break up the state’s lone Democratic-held U.S. House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis. The move comes after pressure from Trump.

The candidate qualifying period in Tennessee ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6. Lee had said.

Clergy members concerned about plans to split Memphis’ congressional district came together Monday to denounce the move.

“This latest attempt at redistricting is not just about lines on a map. It is about misrepresentation,” said the Rev. Earle Fisher, a pastor at the Abyssinian Missionary Baptist Church and the founder of Up the Vote 901, referring to the Memphis area code. “It’s about whether the voices of Black people in this state will be heard or hidden.”

Advocates urge Louisiana voters to cast ballots

After last week’s Supreme Court decision, Louisiana moved quickly to delay its May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts.

Louisiana state Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican who chairs a Senate committee tasked with redistricting, told The Associated Press that his committee plans to hold a public hearing Friday on congressional redistricting. Kleinpeter said lawmakers are still weighing their options, including bills that would eliminate one or both of the state’s two majority-Black Congressional districts

Democrats and civil rights groups have filed several lawsuits challenging the suspension of the state’s congressional primary, including another filed Monday in federal court. They are encouraging people in Louisiana — where early voting already is underway — to go ahead and cast votes in the congressional primaries in case courts later allow them to be counted.

A national redistricting battle expands

Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn only once a decade, after a census, to account for population changes. But Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw U.S. House districts to give the party an advantage. Democrats in California responded by doing the same, and then other states joined in.

Florida became the eighth state to enact new House districts ahead of the midterm elections when Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Monday he had signed a redrawn map passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature. It could help Republicans win as many as four additional House seats. The new map was immediately challenged in court as a partisan gerrymander that violates a Florida constitutional provision against drawing districts that favor one political party over another.

All told, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats from new congressional districts in five states, while Democrats think they could pick up as many as 10 seats from new districts adopted in three states. The newly proposed redistricting in Southern states could add to the Republicans’ tally.

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Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri. Associated Press writers Jack Brook in New Orleans and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

RUTHERFORD COUNTY, Tenn. (WZTV) — Rutherford County Sheriff’s school resource officers recovered two loaded handguns from cars taking students and their dates to the high school prom.

The handguns were found in a student’s rental car at the La Vergne High School prom in Murfreesboro, and a car at the Stewarts Creek’s High School prom last week.

Trevor Carter, 19, a La Vergne High School student, and Deangelo Davis, 18, of Nashville, who attended Stewarts Creek High School prom with a student date were found with the handguns and Davis was found with marijuana as well.

A resource officer was checking vehicles for alcohol at the La Vergne prom venue and saw an AR-15 pistol with two loaded magazines on the floor of the car.

“I asked Trevor why he had the weapon and he told me it was for protection stating, ‘you never know when something could happen, someone could roll up on you anytime, when you’re with your mother, anywhere,’ showing intent to be armed,” the officer said.

His mother confirmed she knew the weapon was inside the vehicle.

At the Stewarts Creek High School prom, an officer saw an open bottle of whiskey and noticed a marijuana smell. He located Davis and his date and confiscated “the Glock 9mm handgun that contained one round in the chamber and eighteen additional rounds in an extended magazine that was in the handgun,” he said.

Davis told Beane the alcohol belonged to his date’s mother.

Carter, 19, was charged with possession of a weapon at a school function, and Davis, 18, was charged with carrying a weapon on school grounds and marijuana possession. Both were released on bond.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Republican governors in Alabama and Tennessee have summoned lawmakers into special sessions this week seeking new congressional districts after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.

Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has called legislators back to Montgomery starting Monday to approve contingency plans for special primary elections in hopes that the Supreme Court will allow the state to switch congressional maps ahead of the November midterms. It’s a move that Republicans legislative leaders said would “give our state a fighting chance to send seven Republican members to Congress.” The seven-member delegation currently has two Democrats.

In Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee also announced a special session starting Tuesday for the GOP-controlled Legislature to break up the state’s one Democratic-held House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis.

The Supreme Court decision striking down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana said the drawing of the district map relied too much on race. The ruling began reverberating through statehouses across the South as Republicans eyed the possibility of getting new lines in place for the 2026 midterm elections, or at least 2028.

President Donald Trump encouraged the latest round of redistricting in a post on social media on Sunday, saying his party could gain 20 seats in the House.

“We should demand that State Legislatures do what the Supreme Court says must be done,” Trump said. “That is more important than administrative convenience.”

Florida approved new districts the day of the Supreme Court ruling, and Louisiana moved quickly to postpone its May 16 congressional primary, drawing lawsuits from Democrats and civil rights groups. The state’s Republican leadership started planning for a redraw that could eliminate one or both of its congressional districts now represented by a Black lawmaker. South Carolina’s governor suggested his state might also reconsider its congressional map.

Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, described the court decision and the redistricting scramble as an attempt to roll back the Civil Rights Movement.

“They said we’re going to allow partisan politicians to gerrymander you, so that even when you show up, your voice won’t have as much impact because we’ll play with the lines,” he said Sunday from the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. once served as pastor. “That isn’t a new method. That’s an old method. That’s a Jim Crow method.”

The Supreme Court ruling boosted an already intense national redistricting battle by providing Republican officials in some states potential new grounds to redraw voting districts.

Federal judges previously ordered Alabama to use a court-selected map with a second district with a substantial number of Black voters. The judges also ordered Alabama to use the new map until after the 2030 Census. Alabama is appealing that decision and is hoping the court, in light of the Louisiana ruling, will let Alabama revert to a 2023 map drawn by state lawmakers.

“As I continue saying, Alabama knows our state, our people and our districts best,” Ivey said.

Tennessee’s move comes after a pressure campaign by Trump and other Republicans to reconfigure the state’s 9th Congressional District. Republicans have always been checkmated by the Voting Rights Act in their desire to spread the district’s Democratic voters around neighboring conservative districts and make it winnable, but the law may no longer be an impediment.

“We owe it to Tennesseans to ensure our congressional districts accurately reflect the will of Tennessee voters,” Lee said Friday. The move was encouraged by Trump, who wrote on social media Thursday that Lee had promised to work hard to give Republicans one extra seat.

The candidate qualifying period in Tennessee ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6. Democrats noted that in 2022 the state Supreme Court checked additional redistricting because it was too close to an election. They argued that the court is their best hope this time around too.

“We cannot keep doing things like this and calling ourselves a democracy,” Democratic State Sen. Ramesh Akbari said at a news conference outside the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.

Alabama Democrats also sharply criticized the decision to try to change the maps ahead of looming elections.

“This special session is a blatant power grab by Republican leadership in Montgomery to eliminate seats held by Black Democrats,” said former Sen. Doug Jones, a Democratic candidate for Alabama governor.

Louisiana has suspended its May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts, though that is being challenged in court.

Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw U.S. House districts to give the party an advantage. Democrats in California responded by doing the same, then other states joined the battle. Lawmakers, commissions or courts have adopted new House districts in eight states.

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Associated Press writers Jeff Amy, Bill Barrow, Jack Brook, Nicholas Riccardi and David A. Lieb contributed to this report.