The panel of federal judges who will decide the fate of four lawsuits filed to prevent Tennessee’s new Congressional map from taking effect before the midterm elections was announced last Wednesday. Two of the judges are appointees of President Donald Trump, while the third was nominated by former President Barack Obama.
According to the order released last Wednesday by the Sixth Circuit Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has assigned Circuit Judge John Nalbandian of the Sixth Circuit, who was appointed to the circuit court by Trump in 2018, and Chief District Judge Greg Stivers of the Western District of Kentucky, who was nominated to the bench by Obama in 2014.
The third judge assigned to the case remains Chief U.S. District Judge William Campbell of the Middle District of Tennessee, another Trump-appointed jurist, who was originally assigned the lawsuit filed by the Tennessee Democratic Party and various Democratic candidates.
Since that lawsuit was filed, the case has been consolidated with three more lawsuits. These include a lawsuit with Memphis plaintiffs represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a lawsuit filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and an effort by Pamela Moses, the independent candidate running to represent the 8th Congressional District in Congress.
While the case moves forward with the federal panel of judges, Moses has filed to reverse the consolidation of her case, or else to sever it from the other lawsuits.
A former Democrat who ran as an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in 2024, Moses’ pro se lawsuit includes arguments alleging violations of due process, equal protection, the First Amendment, Tennessee state law, and the Voting Rights Act.
Moses told The Tennessee Star in 2024 that her Senate candidacy shared similarities with the long shot independent presidential bid mounted the same year by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who left the Democratic Party over claims his primary campaign against former President Joe Biden was stifled. Kennedy later endorsed Trump and now serves as the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The federal lawsuits move to the federal panel as the state lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s new congressional districts, also filed by the Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP, was dismissed last Tuesday.
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Tom Pappert is a 2025 recipient of the Dao Prize and the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star. He also reports for the Star News Network. Follow Tom on X. Email tips to [email protected].
