Tennessee Supreme Court upholds state law shrinking size of Metro Council
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
The size of Nashville's Metro Council will be slashed from 40 to no more than 20 after the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld on Monday a controversial state law that's been tied up in litigation for three years.
Why it matters: To put it plainly, how you are represented on the council is going to completely change.
- The ruling stands to overhaul the way Metro handles local issues while creating political upheaval and bureaucratic busywork.
Between the lines: Metro officials must now reconfigure the city's legislative body and draw new district boundaries.
- Council members currently represent about 20,000 people, making them neighborhood-level politicians who are often easy to reach by email or text message.
- Now the number of people a district member represents will at least double, and that means the number of rezoning requests and legislative issues they handle will double as well.
Flashback: The state legislature passed a law in 2023 limiting the size of the council for Metro forms of government to no more than 20.
- Republicans pushed for the law after Metro leaders rejected a plan for Nashville to host the 2024 Republican National Convention.
- Critics viewed the law as Republican retribution. It was one of several Nashville-centric proposals the GOP pursued after the RNC snub.
- Metro won a lower court ruling striking down the law, but the state won on appeal, which set the stage for the deciding ruling by the Supreme Court.
State of play: Since the inception of Metro government in 1963, the council has been composed of 40 members: 35 district members representing different parts of town and five at-large members representing the entire county.
- With 40 members, Nashville has one of the largest city councils in the country.
Friction point: Champions of the system say it allowed residents to easily get to know their district council members and talk to them about hyper-local issues.
- Critics say the council's size made it too unwieldy and disorganized. A decade ago, a ballot measure sought to reduce the size of the council, but voters rejected that plan by a wide margin.
What he's saying: State Rep. William Lamberth, the council law's architect, hailed the Supreme Court's decision as "a major win for small government."
The other side: Councilmember Brenda Gadd tells Axios that slicing the council in half "means fewer people carrying more responsibility — and residents paying the price.
- "When someone calls their council member about a flooded street, an unsafe intersection or a development that could reshape their neighborhood, they deserve someone who knows that community and has time to respond."
What's next: The council must decide how many district members and how many at-large members should make up the newly formed body.
- The number of at-large seats figures to be a point of debate, with everything from five to zero on the table.
- With fewer district members, city officials will likely consider adding more staffers to the council office to help with constituent services.
What we're watching: Metro's Planning Department will propose new district boundaries. New maps must be approved perhaps in time for next year's Metro election.
- It is likely that incumbent council members will face off against each other after the districts are redrawn.
Editor's note: This is a breaking story that has been updated with more details.