Charlane Oliver sues over special session protest punishments

Tennessee state Sen. Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville) is suing Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) and other Senate officials months after she was punished for leading a protest on the Senate floor during this Spring’s special legislative session that redrew the state's congressional map.

During the Senate vote on the legislation, Oliver stood on her desk in the Senate chamber and unfurled a sheet reading “No Jim Crow 2.0” and “Stop the TN Steal.” Meanwhile, other Democratic senators stood in the chamber’s well in protest as the redrawn map split Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District in Memphis into three districts, effectively gerrymandering what was then the state’s only majority-Black district.