AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Tennessee is moving to eliminate its only majority-Black Democratic-held congressional district in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision to weaken the protections of the Voting Rights Act against racial discrimination in redistricting. Tennessee's ninth district, which covers most of Memphis and its inner suburbs, would be broken into three separate districts in a new congressional map passed by the state's Republican majority on Thursday.
Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen currently holds the seat for the district that Tennessee Republicans want to break up. He joins us now. Welcome, Congressman Cohen.
STEVE COHEN: Good to be with NPR and your audience.
CHANG: So first, just tell us what you've been hearing from people there in Memphis about this new plan.
COHEN: People in general are very, very upset about it. Memphis has had a Congressman for, I don't know, 100 years, at least. And Memphis has been a city with a commonality of purpose and issues and compact. For many years, it was a white-majority city, and it grew to be a Black-majority city. It was not a Voting Rights Act jurisdiction. It was just through natural growth, and the legislature recognized that and that Memphis should have a Congressperson. And we've had one for all these years, and now they broke it up, and the districts go from the Mississippi line up to the Kentucky line and over to Nashville - one of them - and another one goes to - along the Mississippi line, almost to Chattanooga. We're talking 200 miles. No commonality of interest whatsoever. And the Black community, which was 69% of my district, District 9, which covered mostly Memphis...
CHANG: Yeah.
COHEN: ...Is now split up in three different districts, and they're all about 30% Black, which means that the 70% white will carry the day.
CHANG: Let me ask you - and forgive me for pointing out the obvious. You are a white politician who has been representing this majority-Black district. What do you think is the significance of Tennessee losing its only majority-Black district?
COHEN: Well, it's going to lessen African Americans' interest in the election process when they know that their decision in a primary is going to be for a candidate who probably doesn't have much of a chance to win. They're drawn to be Republican districts, and they're not going to be as involved in the process because they're not going to feel confident that their choice is going to be the nominee. And then they won't vote for governor or for senator or whatever other races are on the ballot, too. So it just eliminates a lot of their enthusiasm and organization for political involvement.
CHANG: You have been representing, as you mentioned, this district for 20 years. Two decades is a pretty long time to serve one district, a lot of people might argue. What do you say to them? - I mean, people who think that maybe this new map provides a chance for other candidates to bring fresh perspectives, that it's a good thing to try to bring in new voices into the House of Representatives.
COHEN: No, it's not a good idea because the district has been electing me with the same numbers - 70- to 80% - for the whole time. So the district didn't think we needed a new representative. It's the governor and the president who thought we needed a new representative. And the president who wants to keep himself out from possibly being impeached and having strong oversight - which would happen if the Democrats had the majority in Congress - of what I think are illegal acts of the monuments, violations, pardons for pay, and all kind of crypto money that he's made. He doesn't want that to happen. So he's asked the governor, who's term limited. And come next January, he's going to want a job, and President Trump can give him a position as a cabinet member or an agency head or an ambassador. So it's going to help the governor and it's going to help the president, but it's not going to help the state of Tennessee.
CHANG: Tell us what you're doing now to try to counter this redistricting move, then.
COHEN: We've - 1 of maybe 10 plaintiffs in a lawsuit that was filed this morning to challenge a couple of rounds. One's First Amendment to those who've been involved in the process and runnings.
CHANG: Right. Well, let's speak more broadly now because the thing is, Congressman, both sides of the aisle have been engaged in this larger redistricting battle. Like, last year, California voters approved a map that would benefit Democrats. And last month, Virginia voters did the same thing, though that map was just struck down by the state Supreme Court. What do you say to people watching all of this, who are like, hey, two wrongs, don't make it right, no matter who's doing it? None of this tit for tat between the two sides is good for democracy in general. How do you respond?
COHEN: Yeah, It's not good for democracy. Donald Trump started this in Texas when he called the Texas governor and asked him to get him four or five new congressmen.
CHANG: Right, and Democrats are punching back. So now there's a tit for tat. What do you think of that?
COHEN: If we don't do it and Gavin Newsom didn't do it, we'd be dead. We would not be - have a chance at having the majority in the House of Representatives and the authoritarian leader who started this unprecedented action by going to Texas - just like he went to Georgia and said, find me 11,000 votes - he would be a president without any oversight. That's not right.
CHANG: Well, do you think that there is a better way for your party to handle this redistricting battle going forward? Is there anything that you would advise your party to do differently?
COHEN: There's not a better way. The whole idea of, they go low and we go high, failed. It doesn't work. Politics is a tough sport, and when somebody's in charge of it who's basically a gangster who learned his trade in questionable activities in New York - when he went bankrupt many, many times and didn't pay his creditors, got banned from ever being on a board of a not-for-profit because he used Trump University to bilk people out of their dollars, used charitable funds to buy pictures of himself for his home and to give money to Pam Bondi out of his charitable fund as a political contribution - when that type of person is making the rules and changing the midterm redistricting with Texas, if we don't respond, we will not be able to have the authority to have oversight, which is what he needs to make sure the American public knows what's been going on.
CHANG: I guess I'm kind of just wondering, what's the end game? If we throw out, they go low, we go high - if we throw out that approach and everyone just stays low and it keeps going back and forth, how does this all unfold ultimately?
COHEN: Well, if the Democrats didn't respond, they would continue to have the house and have it forever. And that's just not right. We'll have authoritarianism. We'll have Orbán. He's close to Orbán already.
CHANG: You're talking about Victor Orbán, the leader in Hungary, who's just been voted out of office.
COHEN: Yes, he'd like to be Orbán. There's nothing out there that he doesn't consider his own. The government is his own private business, and he runs it like that - tearing down the east wing of the White House, putting his name on the Kennedy Center, building an arch of tremendous height and is his grandiose legacy for himself. We don't need any of that. The man is off his rocker. He's got his hand on the nuclear bomb. He could do anything. He needs oversight. The legislative powers have, especially in the House, surrendered to him, and that's unfortunate. We don't exercise our power of the purse. We're supposed to initiate all spending. He spends money without any congressional approval, and the House doesn't question him. And then courts have come in and said, two of tariffs were illegal. There were tariffs that the House should have established, and the House didn't question it because we've become an arm of the administration, which is not what the Founding Fathers and the Constitution anticipated, desired and wanted and what this country's about.
CHANG: That is Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen of Tennessee. Thank you very much.
COHEN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
