Stacey Abrams says that GOP 'intention' is to dismantle democracy

Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic nominee for Georgia governor, told MS NOW host Michael Steele on Thursday that Republicans’ redrawing of Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District was part of a broader effort to “dismantle democracy for all of us.”

Ms. Abrams made the remarks during an appearance on “The Briefing,” where Mr. Steele, the former Republican National Committee chairman, was filling in for regular host Jen Psaki. The interview aired the same night Tennessee held primary elections under a newly redrawn congressional map that dismantled the state’s only majority-Black district.

Mr. Steele asked Ms. Abrams whether backlash to the redistricting had motivated turnout in Tennessee’s primary. Ms. Abrams responded by citing her own testimony before Tennessee lawmakers earlier this year.

“I was there, I testified in front of the Senate committee, a committee that convened and passed a map it had not yet drawn,” Ms. Abrams said, according to a transcript published by NewsBusters, a conservative media watchdog site that flagged the exchange. “And as you pointed out, they intended to dismantle black voting power because they intend to dismantle democracy.”

Ms. Abrams argued that while Republicans “target black voters for their animus,” their broader goal extends further. “Their intention is to dismantle democracy for all of us,” she said. “They just start with the community they think is the easiest to attack.”

She went on to claim that undoing the changes wrought by decades of civil-rights-era reforms could take just as long as it took to erode them. “It’s taken them 61 years to get what they wanted, which is a return to Jim Crow,” she said, “but it took them 60 years to dismantle it. We don’t have 60 years to wait to rebuild it.”

Redistricting fight

Tennessee’s Republican-controlled Legislature redrew the state’s congressional map in a May special session, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais that weakened Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters. The new map split Shelby County — home to Memphis — across three congressional districts, eliminating the 9th District’s status as the state’s only majority-Black, Democratic-held seat. Rep. Steve Cohen, the district’s longtime Democratic representative, announced he would not seek reelection under the new lines.

Ms. Abrams testified against the map in May, when she addressed Tennessee’s Senate during the special session, telling lawmakers that “rigged maps that decide elections before a single vote is cast” amounted to “cowardice,” not democracy.

Republicans have defended the new map as a legitimate response to the Supreme Court ruling and as an effort to strengthen the GOP’s hold on Tennessee’s congressional delegation, which now includes eight of the state’s nine seats.