Calling All Blount County Dems URGENT Help Needed
In a very short amount of time, Democratic Congrerssional veterans John Tanner and Bart Gordon have announced they’re done.
There’s undoubtedly some truth to that. But the real reason? It’s called reapportionment, and it is just about ready to bite the Tennessee Democratic Party in a big way. The whole thing dates to a little old U.S. Supreme Court ruling handed down in 1962 in Baker vs. Carr, a case that originated in Nashville.
Tennessee’s Constitution requires that legislative and congressional district lines regularly be redrawn. But state lawmakers ignored that mandate from 1901 until the 1960s. A system developed that gave rural lawmakers the ability to create little fiefdoms and gave them a disproportionate amount of sales tax compared to what Tennessee’s big cities were getting.
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For example, Moore County, where Jack Daniels is made, had about 4,000 voters and was one legislative district. All of Shelby and Fayette counties were one legislative district, even though there were a half million voters in them.
A group of Nashvillians got fed up with it and filed a lawsuit. Charles Baker, a Memphis official, sued Joe C. Carr, who was the Tennessee secretary of state. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, with a landmark ruling that created the well-known “one man, one vote” rule that says congressional and legislative districts must have an equitable number of voters.
Those map lines can be drawn any which way, splitting counties if need be, to make sure the number of people in each one is the same.
The idea is that every vote should carry the same power as every other vote.
The state legislature gets to draw the lines. It’s been known to draw some pretty illogical districts, just to make sure incumbent Democrats could hold on to their seats. Picture a district that’s only a few miles wide but stretches through multiple counties, for example. Yep. That’s called gerrymandering.
The Tennessee General Assembly will redraw legislative and the state’s nine congressional districts after the 2010 national census. Here’s the rub: For the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans control both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly.
The GOP is about to draw districts in which Tanner and Gordon would find it much more difficult to get re-elected. One Republican told a Chattanooga reporter back in June that when it comes time for redistricting, they’ll be just as fair to the Democrats as the Dems have been to them. Which wasn’t very.
Tanner and Gordon could have gone ahead and run next year, and probably would have won. But in a state that is far redder than blue these days, those elections had the potential to be more bloody and difficult than they’ve ever experienced.
No one had to draw them a map to see where this was going.
Gail Kerr’s column runs on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. She can be reached at 615-259-8085 or gkerr@tennessean.com; follow her on Twitter @GailKerr.
— neither will seek re-election next year. Each lists a plethora of reasons, including family concerns and the ever-popular desire to start “the next chapter.”
