Tennessee House Republicans pass bill to slash Nashville council size

  • The bill would cap metro and city councils to no more than 20 members.
  • While the bill doesn't mention Nashville by name, it is the only council with more than 20 members.
  • Some county governments have larger membership, but changing those would require a state constitutional amendment.
  • Democrats, particularly those from Nashville, denounced the bill.

Nashville's Metro Council is one step closer to shrinking by at least half after Tennessee House Republicans on Monday voted in favor of a controversial bill that local officials view as retaliation against the state's capital city.

Republicans voted overwhelmingly for HB 48, which would require city and metropolitan governments to cap their councils at 20 members. The House passed the measure 72-25.

The legislation doesn't directly name Nashville, but bill sponsors have acknowledged that, in practice, Nashville would be the only local government in the state affected by the legislation at this time. There are two other metropolitan governments in Tennessee and neither have councils larger than 20 members.

Bill sponsor and House Majority Leader Rep. William Lamberth, R-Portland has argued the bill is to increase efficiency in local governments.

The public listen as the Metro Council meeting. The council has 40 members.

"When you look across the nation, there are very, very few councils that are larger than 20," Lamberth said, calling it a "mistake" that Nashville Metro Council's expanded to 40 members six decades ago. "I hope we rarely have cities that grow beyond 15."

However, the bill is widely viewed as the General Assembly's first retaliatory strike against the 40-member Metro Council after it blocked an effort for Nashville to bid on hosting the 2024 Republican National Convention, a move that sparked significant ire among legislative Republicans.

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Republicans on Monday voted down an effort by House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, to delay changes to council size and allow a local vote. Clemmons argued the bill is "setting up Metro government for failure" as the bill butts up against upcoming election qualifying deadlines.

“What you’re seeking to do is limit the representation of each individual in Davidson County," Clemmons said. "Fifty-six counties have smaller populations than the council districts you want to create.”

Nearly all of Nashville's House delegation spoke out against the measure. The delegation's newest member, Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, called the bill part of a "concentrated, coordinated, collective ongoing and relentless attack against Davidson County."

"Why? Because it represents the future of Tennessee," Jones said. "Our council was the most diverse council in recent history. Now a body that is the opposite of that, an almost entirely white-member caucus, is going to tell us we're going to reduce minority representation because their feeling are hurt that they're not having a party with the rest of the Republicans in the nation. Let's be honest about what this is about. It's about power, absolute power."

In February, dozens of prominent Nashville business leaders wrote Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, and House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, to express concern about the relationship between the city and state legislature, writing the ongoing tensions "threaten to destabilize the climate for economic success and government efficacy that have long been the city’s calling card and a major contributor to the state’s success."

The Tennessee state Capitol in Nashville. The Tennessee House passed a bill on Monday to shrink the size of Nashville's council by half.

“While we acknowledge that disagreements are common in government, we believe the increasingly adversarial relationship between the General Assembly and Nashville’s Metropolitan Government will lead to significant harm to both our community and the state. We respectfully ask that the set of bills involving Nashville be set aside and space created for constructive dialogue to prevail.”

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Nashville Mayor John Cooper in February also signaled to the Republican National Committee that Nashville would submit a bid to host the party's 2028 convention, which some hoped would be a good-faith gesture to lawmakers considering a slate of bills to wrest control from Nashville. But Cooper said the Metro Council would ultimately have to sign off on a site agreement, while legislative leadership have suggested Cooper could and should sign off on an agreement unilaterally.

"As Mayor Cooper said in January when this legislation was first introduced, circumventing Nashville voters and unilaterally shrinking Metro Council undermines the will of residents and effective local governance," spokesperson TJ Ducklo said in a statement Monday. "The Mayor has serious concerns about how these bills could be implemented, and is engaged in active conversations with legislative leaders on the potential impact of what's being proposed."

Nashville voters rejected a 2015 referendum to shrink the council to 27 members.

Impact on local elections

Should the bill's Senate counterpart receive approval from state lawmakers, Nashville's upcoming local elections on Aug. 3 would be upended.

More than 30 candidates have launched campaigns for the 35 district seats and five at-large seats that currently exist on Nashville's council, and the qualifying deadline to enter the race is May 18.

The bill's passage would mean a new council structure would need to be developed and adopted, and Nashville's districts would have to be redrawn. Nashville accepted new maps for its 35 existing districts last year to adjust for the results of the 2020 census. That process, which included rounds of public feedback, took several months.

Related:Nashville council candidates charge ahead with campaigns for seats in state crosshairs

Nashville would have to complete a new redistricting process by May 1 or extend the terms of its current council members for one year under the House bill. Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, who is running for Nashville mayor, has previously argued it would be unconstitutional to unilaterally extend terms, an assertion Republicans have brushed aside.

It's not clear whether current council members, more than a quarter of whom have already served their two-term limit, would be willing to serve an additional year.

Southwest Nashville Council member Dave Rosenberg, who is term-limited, said Monday that the current council was elected by constituents for four years, with the understanding voters would be able to choose representatives again in 2023.

"The state constitution says pretty clearly that county legislative body legislators are elected for a four-year term, so I don't see how we can be expected, or how it would be right for us to continue beyond this August," Rosenberg said.

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But Brentwood-area Council member Robert Swope, who is also term-limited, said a council size reduction should have happened two decades ago. Twenty full-time district council members would be "small enough to be able to work much more cohesively, effectively and cost-consciously than we currently are," he said.

With Nashville's council "in the same ballpark" as Chicago and New York in terms of size is "insanity," he said.

The Metro Council approved a resolution opposing HB 48 since it makes "substantial changes to governance in Nashville-Davidson County without the assent of Davidson County voters" on a 31-3 vote with two abstentions in February. Copies of this statement were sent to members of the Tennessee General Assembly and Gov. Bill Lee.

Swope voted against that resolution.

"We are a Metro government at the grace of the state," he said Monday. "We wouldn't have a charter if the state didn't permit it. So if the state needs to protect its municipalities, then I'm all in favor of that."

Bill sparks concerns of reducing minority representation

The potential for litigation poses further questions about the timeline for council elections.

"Assuming the Senate follows suit and goes down the same dangerous path, then I guess we'll have to see what happens in state court and federal court," Rosenberg said. "There are a whole bunch of egregious pieces to this that bring into question violations of the state constitution and federal issues, minority representation, for one."

Nashville's current 40-member council exists, in part, due to a race-related compromise meant to increase opportunities for Black residents to serve on the council. The 40-member model was approved by Nashville and Davidson County voters via referendum in 1962. The first attempt, which proposed 21 council seats, failed in 1958.

Related:Nashville historians: Metro is a 'bold experiment' rooted in race-related compromise

Fourteen Hispanic leaders wrote a letter to Lee, McNally and Sexton Monday asking them to reject the bill.

"Research shows that reducing the size of a legislative body has a negative impact on minority representation — this is especially true in the Latinx community," the letter states. "Here, in Tennessee, despite making up 6.9% of the total population, the Latinx community only has four elected officials in the entire state."

Current South Nashville Council member Sandra Sepulveda, Nashville's first Hispanic female council member, is among those who signed the letter.

Meanwhile, the conservative Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee praised passage of the bill.

“At the end of the day it doesn’t matter if there are 41 or 14 members on the Metro council – they give the illusion of representation, while refusing to be responsive to the average citizen," the group's state director, Tori Venable, said in a statement. "We applaud the legislature’s efforts to bring the Nashville council more in line with peer cities, literally shrinking government, and saving Nashville taxpayers millions in the years to come.“

Reach Melissa Brown at mabrown@tennessean.com and Cassandra Stephenson at ckstephenson@tennessean.com.