Republican governors in Alabama and Tennessee called their state legislatures back for special sessions next week, moving within days of a Supreme Court decision that narrowed the reach of the Voting Rights Act and opened the door for states to redraw congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announced Friday that lawmakers would convene in Montgomery on Monday. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee followed the same day, setting a Tuesday start in Nashville. Both governors framed the sessions as urgent responses to the Court's Wednesday ruling, which struck down Louisiana's second majority-Black congressional district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines.

The two states are the first to act aggressively on redistricting since that ruling. And they may not be the last. Newsmax reported that Florida's Republican-led legislature approved new U.S. House districts within hours of the decision, a move that could help Republicans gain up to four additional seats, while Mississippi and Georgia are also weighing legal or legislative action.

Alabama: emergency motions and a possible primary delay

Ivey's move came after an initial hesitation. In the immediate aftermath of Wednesday's ruling, the governor had insisted she would wait for pending legal arguments to be settled, The Hill reported. By Friday, that posture had changed.

Alabama's attorney general, Steve Marshall, filed emergency motions with the Supreme Court to take up the state's redistricting case, according to both the governor's statement and the Washington Examiner. The state is awaiting a Court decision on whether it can revert to a previous congressional map ahead of the November midterm elections.

Ivey laid out her reasoning in a statement posted on X:

"By calling the Legislature into a special session, I am ensuring Alabama is prepared should the courts act quickly enough to allow Alabama's previously drawn congressional and state senate maps to be used during this election cycle."

The backstory matters. In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that a congressional map Alabama adopted after the 2020 census likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting power. The Republican-controlled legislature was ordered to redraw its map to include a second majority-Black congressional district. Wednesday's ruling, which narrowed the scope of Section 2, gives Alabama a fresh legal argument that the forced redraw may no longer be required.

The special session will also address the possibility of moving Alabama's May 19 primaries if new maps take effect in time. The governor's statement to the legislature was explicit on this point. She called on lawmakers to "address legislation to provide for a special primary election for electing members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Alabama State Senate in districts whose boundary lines are altered by court action," the Washington Examiner reported.

That is no small logistical lift. But Ivey said she remains "hopeful Alabama will receive a favorable outcome from the U.S. Supreme Court." The Court's Louisiana redistricting ruling has clearly given her reason to believe the legal landscape has shifted in the state's favor.

Tennessee: targeting a nine-seat Republican sweep

In Tennessee, the ambitions are even more explicit. Gov. Bill Lee called lawmakers back to Nashville to review the state's congressional map, with a special session set to begin Tuesday.

Lee framed the effort in broad terms:

"We owe it to Tennesseans to ensure our congressional districts accurately reflect the will of Tennessee voters."

But the political math tells a sharper story. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who is running for governor, urged the state legislature on Wednesday, the same day as the Supreme Court ruling, to draw new maps that would favor Republicans in all nine of Tennessee's House districts. That would mean targeting the Memphis-based seat currently held by Democrat Steve Cohen.

Blackburn wrote on X that the redistricting push was tied to a larger project. She called it "essential to cement @realDonaldTrump's agenda and the Golden Age of America" and vowed to "do everything" she could to make it happen. President Trump himself foreshadowed the Tennessee plan a day before Lee's Friday announcement.

The Supreme Court's recent string of consequential decisions has given Republican-led states a window of opportunity they clearly intend to use. Tennessee's move, if successful, would flip the state's delegation from an 8-1 Republican advantage to a clean sweep, a shift that could matter in a closely divided House.

A national ripple effect

Alabama and Tennessee are not operating in isolation. The Wednesday ruling has set off a broader push across Republican-governed states. Newsmax reported that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said the rationale in the Supreme Court's decision "requires Georgia to adopt new electoral maps before the 2028 election cycle." Florida moved even faster, with its legislature approving new House districts the same day.

The political stakes are real. Republicans hold a narrow House majority. If redistricting efforts in Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, and potentially other states succeed, the GOP could pick up several seats before a single vote is cast in 2026. That is not gerrymandering by stealth, it is the direct consequence of a Supreme Court ruling that changed the legal rules governing how maps are drawn.

For years, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was used to require the creation of majority-minority districts, often over the objections of state legislatures that argued the provision was being stretched beyond its original meaning. The Court's 6-3 decision narrowing that provision has now given those legislatures room to act. Whether one views that as a correction or a rollback depends largely on where one sits politically.

The Court's reshaping of its own workload and emergency docket has already drawn criticism from the left. And this ruling is no exception.

Harris sounds the alarm, but offers no plan

Former Vice President Kamala Harris posted a social media video on Friday reacting to the ruling. Her message leaned heavily on alarm and exhortation, light on specifics.

"What now is going to happen is it's going to be more difficult to challenge those laws that get passed that we know are intended to make it more difficult for you to have the representatives that you want at a local level, state level and congressional level."

She urged followers not to give in to discouragement:

"Here's the bottom line: They may put all kinds of obstacles in front of us. They may try to make it more difficult. There are people who are gonna say, 'your vote doesn't matter, it doesn't count.' Let's not fall for it."

What Harris did not offer was a concrete legal strategy, a legislative proposal, or any mechanism to counter the redistricting wave now underway. The video amounted to a rallying cry without a plan, a familiar pattern from a political figure who spent years in positions of power without addressing the very vulnerability she now describes.

Meanwhile, Republican governors are not posting videos. They are calling sessions, filing motions, and drawing maps. The contrast between action and rhetoric could hardly be sharper.

What comes next

Several open questions remain. Alabama is still waiting on the Supreme Court to decide whether it can revert to its previous congressional map. The emergency motions filed by Attorney General Marshall have not yet been ruled on. If the Court acts quickly, Alabama could have new district lines in place before the midterms, but the timeline is tight, and the May 19 primary may need to be pushed back.

In Tennessee, the specifics of the new map have not been disclosed. But with Blackburn publicly targeting all nine districts and the governor backing the effort, the legislature's direction seems clear.

Other states, Georgia, Mississippi, and possibly more, are watching closely. The broader pattern of legal and political fights headed toward the Supreme Court suggests this redistricting wave is only the beginning of a larger realignment in how courts and legislatures interact on voting maps.

For voters in Alabama and Tennessee, the immediate reality is straightforward: their congressional districts may look different by the time they cast ballots this fall. For the national political landscape, the implications run deeper. A Supreme Court majority has redrawn the legal boundaries. Now Republican-led states are redrawing the maps to match.

When the rules change, the people who move first gain the advantage. Alabama and Tennessee are not waiting around to see what happens. That is how self-governance is supposed to work.