Tennessee’s Senate map will likely stay in place for the 2024 election despite a three-judge ruling issued last month.
The state’s supreme court sided with the state’s lawyers and blocked a lower ruling that a new map should be drawn by Jan. 31, because the current one violates Tennessee’s Constitution. Instead, the new map won’t be drawn until after the state’s appeal, meaning a new one likely won’t go into effect until 2026 at the earliest.
The appeal came after a lower court panel ruled 2-1 in November that lawmakers violated state law when they drew a new Senate map that didn’t follow a number sequencing rule.
The dissenting judge in the case argued that the plaintiffs in the suit, whom the Democratic Party backed, didn’t have standing for the case because they couldn’t prove actual harm from the state not following the rule.
The state appealed based on that opinion. Friday’s ruling by the Tennessee Supreme Court sends the case to the appeals court for any future ruling.
This story was originally published by the Tennessee Lookout.
