We speak with Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson about fighting data centers, billionaires, and the MAGA Republicans gerrymandering his district—the only majority-Black district in the state—out of existence.

After an April decision by the US Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Tennessee became the first state to redraw its Congressional district maps, resulting in the 9th District—a solidly Democratic seat representing the only majority-Black district in the state—being erased. We speak with Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson, who has been running to represent Tennessee’s 9th District in the US House of Representatives, about why he is still running despite Republicans’ attempts to rig the electoral process, and what is at stake for Tennessee and the country this midterm election season.

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Credits:

  • Videography: Stephen Janis, Maximillian Alvarez
  • Post-Production: David Hebden

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated as soon as possible.

Maximillian Alvarez:

We’re here in Philadelphia at the 2026 Net Roots Conference and I’m sitting with Representative Justin Pearson from the Tennessee House of Representatives who is now running for the US House of Representatives. Representative Pearson, thank you so much for joining us. I know you only have a few minutes and we got so much to talk about, so I kind of want to just throw a couple things at you and let you go, right? I got you. Tennessee was the first state to redistrict its congressional maps after this Supreme Court hearing. So you were at the center of that. What the heck can people do about this attempt to rig the midterm elections and everything moving forward? Second, you are in Memphis, one of the epicenters of this data center crisis, black, brown communities being poisoned, energy being taken, billionaires ruining everything. So what is it like on the ground in Tennessee?

What can be done at the state level and what do you hope to accomplish at the national level with this by being a member of the House of Representatives?

Justin Pearson:

Absolutely. Thanks so much again for having me. But look, the first problem is we are seeing a deleterious impact to our democracy with the Supreme Court now being captured and operating as a partisan entity instead of an independent one. The consequences of that are real. We have a new district now with 15 counties, but listen, go to votejustinj.com, sign up to volunteer. You can phone bank from anywhere in the country and it’s going to take a mass mobilization effort for us to win, but it is possible. And it didn’t make it impossible for us to win. They just made it more difficult and we’re okay taking on a challenge. But our message is clear. We are standing up against billionaires in the status quo that has not worked for people. We understand that politically, Democrats and Republicans too often have done the same things that have led us to the consequences of decisions where billionaires have captured our government, are polluting the air that we breathe, taking the water that we drink and polluting it just for their companies to make more profits.

So we’re a voice for working class people and addressing these issues head on at the state level. We’ve introduced the moratorium similar to what Senator Sanders and Congresswoman, the AOC and others have been putting forward. And at the national level, that’s going to be something I push for. We have to slow this down, address the causes and the issues of working class people and stop billionaires from taking over our government and our country.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And do you think that the Democratic Party is ready for that, especially with the 2024 autopsy being so sparse on real critical details of what the party did wrong to lose to Trump. Again, what do you think it’s going to take to defeat MAGA, Trump and the Republicans today?

Justin Pearson:

Yeah, we have to build power. We have to make sure that we are increasing our turnout, our education, our information. We have to go to places other people have not gone. We went and knocked some doors in rural communities. We knocked on doors where someone said, “No one’s ever been here in the 40 years that I’ve lived here.” That is what it is going to take precinct by precinct, county by county, state by state. And we can’t negate or neglect the south in particular where the mass majority of black folks in the United States of America live with the bedrock of the Democratic Party. We need everybody to come to the south and support, whether that’s virtually or in person because this is the moment and this is the time to defend what we believe.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And final question, like when you are going around talking to folks in rural areas, in the cities, in the south, people have a lot of ideas about who lives there, what they think, where their politics come from. What do you think people need to know about the potential for building working class political coalitions? What are the issues that are uniting working people in Tennessee that the political pundit class just totally misses?

Justin Pearson:

It’s economics. People are struggling financially. Everybody’s dealing with the consequences of an Iran war that has led us with high gas prices, high grocery prices, and they want an economy that works for everybody, not just for the people at the top. Everybody wants to have, everybody we talk to wants Medicare for all, wants an expansion of healthcare, and particularly in a state like Tennessee, where we have the highest number of people with medical debt in the United States of America. 16 rural hospitals have closed. Folks know that this is not the way that things need to be. This is not the way that things have to be. And they want to have voices that stand up to these billionaires, building these data centers all across our state, all across our country without regulations, without permissions, just doing it, taking farm land, taking communities land, destroying our water, destroying our air quality.

They want leaders that are going to fight for them and not just continuing the same political machine, the same status quo that’s happened before.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Sorry, final question because we just talked to Representative Summer Lee and she had a great point, which is like the Republicans are trying to rig the elections and redraw these maps because they know that they are deeply unpopular and they can’t win the popular vote, but the reality of them trying to rig it and take away the Democratic enterprise is very, very real. So what’s your message out there to folks who are already feeling defeated about the upcoming midterm election season and American democracy as such?

Justin Pearson:

Yeah, you cannot quit now. This is the time to give everything that you possibly can for this constitutional Democratic Republican experiment that we have. The next six months are the most important six months I think for all of us who are alive because I don’t ever think, again, you’ll see the stars aligning with the white supremacist president, states that are captured by that presidency, billionaires able to buy government in this kind of way. These six months, you actually need to knock more doors than ever before, make more phone calls to your family, making sure people are registered to vote and that they turn out, support candidates, whether they’re in your state or outside of your state, especially in the South who are dealing with the consequences of racist redistricting. Now is not the time to give up. Listen, I’m still running for Congress. My family hasn’t given up.

My community hasn’t given up. So this isn’t the time for you to sit down and sit back. This is the time to get engaged and get off the sidelines more than ever before to defend what we believe.

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