NAACP Tennessee State Conference v. The State of Tennessee Governor — Final Order Dismissing With Prejudice (Chancery Ct., Davidson County, May 26, 2026)

The order that ended the state challenge to Tennessee’s mid-decade congressional map. The hearing set for May 21, 2026 was held and, by the parties’ stipulation, converted into the final hearing on the merits. Five days later the panel entered judgment.

The disposition, verbatim: “Accordingly, the Court ENTERS JUDGMENT in favor of Respondents. This cause is DISMISSED with prejudice in its entirety.”

Standing, verbatim: “The Court concludes that NAACP Tennessee, Petitioner Sweet-Love, and Representative Chism have failed to satisfy the constitutional standing requirement of a distinct and palpable injury.” Of the petitioners, only Devante Hill cleared it: “the Court concludes that Petitioner Hill has satisfied this requirement.” His claims then failed on the merits.

Immunity, verbatim: “sovereign immunity precludes Petitioners’ claims against Governor Lee and the General Assembly but that Secretary Hargett and Coordinator Goins fit into the Colonial Pipeline exception.”

On the lead state-law claim, verbatim: “Petitioners’ approach would have the Judicial Branch micromanaging its coequal Legislative Branch and substituting this Court’s judgment in place of the General Assembly’s on a granular level as to the specific exercises of its authority.”

Preserved in the repo, because it was hard to reach and should not have to be fought for twice: reference/docket/sources/tnchancery_26-0591-II_FINAL-ORDER_naacp-tn-v-tn-governor_2026-05-26.pdf, sha256 74365ca116c4d4651d6a86776f0f2cf695b2ae31533248980412b0eda6c1e01b, 564,298 bytes, 27 pages. The only public copy located is a Google Drive file linked from inside a Nashville Banner article; tncourts.gov and CourtListener both return Cloudflare challenges to fetch tools.

🔑 The local news coverage of this ruling does not name Gloria Sweet-Love. The holding that she and NAACP Tennessee lacked standing appears in the order and in no secondary account located. A correction sourced to the coverage alone would have been under-cited on its central claim.

Appeal status, checked and not settled. As of September 17, 2026 no appeal of this ruling was identified in available public records. tncourts.gov, CourtListener, AP and Tennessee Lookout were unreachable; the Nashville Banner, WPLN and MLK50 archives were searched through their own REST endpoints and carry no report of an appeal, and a Wayback index scan of the whole tncourts.gov domain for May to September 2026 returned no matching document. That is the limit of what was checked, not a finding that no appeal exists. The separate federal suit over the same map, Sherman v. Hargett, No. 3:26-cv-00616 (M.D. Tenn.), is on its own track: a three-judge federal panel denied a preliminary injunction on July 23, 2026 and that case continues.