Story by Will Chappell, Contributing Writer
Photo by Tennessee Government
Gerrymandering is far from the sole domain of the Republican party— but as a longtime resident of Davidson County, it leaves me feeling more disenfranchised than ever.
Democrats stand poised to lose a congressional seat in Tennessee following the state legislature’s redistricting plan announced earlier this week. Gerrymandering is far from the sole domain of the Republican party— but as a longtime resident of Davidson County, it leaves me feeling more disenfranchised than ever.
Congressional redistricting, which occurs every decade after the census, has long been a source of partisan contention. The term “gerrymandering” itself takes its name from a 19th-century politician. But, in the last few redistricting cycles, the level of district meddling has ratcheted up to obscene levels.
“California has less than nine Republican districts. New York is taking six Republican districts,” as House Speaker Cameron Sexton trenchantly observed.
The problem is gerrymandering is legal. The power of redistricting is left to state governments, and the Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the process was political and not open to judicial review.
So, barring a veto from Governor Lee or a reversal of precedent by the Supreme Court, the new congressional map will go through and split Nashville between three separate districts. North Nashville will join the seventh district, East Nashville will go to the sixth and downtown and West Nashville will remain in the redrawn fifth district.
The seventh district is represented by Mark Greene and the sixth by John Rose, both conservative Republicans. And after Democrat Jim Cooper announced his plans to retire, the fifth district will host an open race.
Former President Trump quickly endorsed Morgan Ortagus, a former spokesperson at the State Department during his administration, though Ortagus has not announced her intentions to run.
What does this mean for Nashville? It means that a city that voted nearly 2-1 for Joe Biden in 2020 will be represented in Congress by two members that voted to reject that result. It means that any Democrat in the city will have no realistic chance to be represented by someone sharing their convictions in Washington for the foreseeable future.
None of this was unpredictable. Cooper raised funds on the issue for the second half of last year. None of this is illegal, the Supreme Court has ruled as much. But it feels belittling and far from Democratic for the state government to decide that my city doesn’t deserve a dedicated representative to fight for the interest of its more than a million residents.
There are proposals for alternative redistricting methods, from algorithms to nonpartisan panels, but there is little reason to believe any state legislature would willingly abdicate the power of giving their party as many representatives as possible. Like so many problems in our politics today, elected officials would have to choose to serve their entire constituency rather than just their voters. Redistricting is one in a gang of broken processes that continually undermine public confidence in our democratic system while perpetuating the power of the entrenched political parties.
