House redistricting to eliminate five Democratic incumbents in urban Tennessee. Dems freak out.

 by Yue Stella Yu, The Tennessean, Dec. 17,2021 -Tennessee House Redistricting Committee on Friday unveiled — and voted to advance — its own draft state House map that would eliminate five Democratic incumbents who face re-election in 2022.

The plan, if approved by the legislature, would further solidify the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly and diminish Democratic influence. 

The map, presented for the first time in public and immediately passed by the committee Friday, would lump nine Democratic incumbents in urban areas such as Nashville, Knoxville and Memphis in four districts.

Six Republicans are paired together under the new district lines, .... House Democratic Caucus Chairman Vincent Dixie, D-Nashville, said the redistricting process reflects Republicans' efforts to "rig" the elections. ... most partisan and racially motivated process that I've been involved in since I have been in the legislature," Dixie said. ... 

 It preserves 13 majority-minority districts statewide ... In Nashville, Rep. John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, and Rep. Jason Potts, D-Nashville, are drawn into House District 52, represented by Rep. Mike Stewart, D-Nashville. Clemmons represents House District 55, which covers west Davidson County. Potts is not up for re-election in 2022, leaving Clemmons and Stewart potential competitors. (read it all)

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Tennessee's newly drawn congressional district boundaries will be revealed next month

 Republican reps keep quiet on Nashville's redistricting future

... U.S. Rep. Mark Green has gone on the record expressing his opposition to dividing Nashville among multiple Republican House members.

.... State Rep. Bob Freeman, D-Nashville, who serves on the House redistricting committee, tells Axios the 5th district is likely to be divided among Republicans.

... Green was quoted in the Nashville Post in September calling the concept of an 8-1 map "greedy" and "a bad idea." He warned splitting Nashville and its liberal voters into suburban districts could backfire in future election cycles.

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TN GOP Set to Sacrifice One of Their Own in Redistricting | Blue Collar Muse

TN GOP Set to Sacrifice One of Their Own in Redistricting | Blue Collar Muse

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New Congressional Districts: Jim Cooper is Safe

The new map of redrawn Congressional districts has been unveiled and the big news is that Jim Cooper is safe. I had hoped that the Fifth Congressional District would be redrawn to create a district where Republicans could compete but that did not happen.

The 2010 census revealed that three of Tennessee’s districts deviated from their ideal population of 705,123 by more than 80,000 people. Federal law requires that congressional districts be exactly equal in population. The new proposed maps create more compact, less sprawling districts correcting decades of illogical gerrymandering by the Democratic‐led legislatures. The new maps divide fewer counties.


To see a map of the current Congressional districts click here and then click "Congressional District Maps."  To see the new proposed districts click here.

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New Republican-drawn Senate Map Released.

The Tennessee Senate’s new redistricting map have been released. For those who thought Democrats would be punished with the redrawing of district line, that is not the case. The redrawing would place Senate Democratic Leader Jim Kyle of Memphis into the same district as a GOP incumbent Sen. Brian Kelsey but the biggest loser is Republican Sen. Kerry Roberts who gets lumped in with Republican state Sen. Jim Summerville. The election of Senators is staggered and Senator Summerville is not up for reelection until 2014, so Senator Kerry will be out office at the end of this year.

The new Senate district maps would create two new seats in Middle Tennessee that currently do not have an incumbents and those seats will be filled in the 2012 election. At this time it is unclean which way these two new Senate seats would lean.

“We were committed to drawing a fair and legal state senate map and that is exactly what we have done.” said Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey. “The map emphasizes regional integrity and adheres to state and federal laws as well as court precedent. I look forward to concluding the redistricting process swiftly and efficiently as soon as we go into session next week.”

To see the current Senate district maps for the middle Tennessee region click here; to view the new proposed Senate district map click here. If you want to know all there is to know about Senate redistricting and see state-wide maps and lots of data, click here. 

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Tennessee House Redistricting Plan Unveiled. See the New Map!

• Rep. Mike Stewart and Rep. Sherry Jones, both Democrats, will be in the same district!

• A new Republican leaning district* is created in Davidson County with no incumbent!

• Republicans may pick up as many as nine new seats Statewide next term!

* One source called the new district "republican leaning," the other described it as a African-American and Hispanic majority district in South Nashville.

I have always thought Republicans should be fair in the redistricting process.  They should be as fair as the Democrats have been for the last hundred and thirty years.

To read more, click here and here and here.  If you want to be an expert on House redistricting and know all there is to know click here.

Here is the current House District map for  Davidson County. Here is the proposed House District map for Davidson County

Here are the current Davidson County House members:

Gary Moore 50

Mike Turner 51

Mike Stewart 52

Janice Sontany 53

Brenda Gilmore 54

Gary Odum  55

Beth Harwll 56

Mary Pruitt 58

Sherry Jones 59

Jim Gotto 60

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Be Fair in Redrawing the District Lines.

A committee of Tennessee Republican lawmakers met last week to begin the process of redrawing the state’s political districts. This will be the first time since reconstruction that Republicans have got to be the ones to redraw the lines. In the past, Democrats used redistricting as a chance to throw two incumbent Republicans into the same district and create new districts that favored Democrats. I hope the Republicans are fair in redrawing the lines- as fair as the Democrats have been.

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Right the wrong and redraw the districts!

by guest blogger J. Lee Douglas

It's been a good harvest and now we need to get the grain to the threshing floor.

Ten years ago in 2001, Jimmy Naifeh and seventy-eight power-hungry democrats agreed to redraw Tennessee's nine US congressional districts into serpentine patterns that grouped conservative-leaning neighborhoods into one single district that would give conservatives such as Marsha Blackburn an almost 95% voter selection. Among conservatives, she could almost not lose because the bulk of conservatives were strategically placed in her district. Sucks, eh? Get mad!!

The net effect for the democrats was that the remaining areas would contain conservatives who would be the minority and never able to have a fair chance to choose someone who might represent their views. An example of this thievery is Jim Cooper's district which consists mostly of Davidson County which was drawn in a way to almost guarantee his election regardless of his obedience to Madame Pelosi.

Look below at the Tennessee congressional map and notice Marsha Blackburn's (teal) district #7 how it runs from outside of Memphis, pinches off where Williamson and Hickman counties touch and then all the way to the Kentucky border in middle Tennessee north of Clarksville! Is that reasonable division of the populous? Mad yet?

This was done for the simple reason that these geographic areas are largely conservative and doing the districting this way creates an imbalance that gives a material edge to people such as Cooper or Lincoln Davis. The math becomes that we get one, they get two, three or four!

The irony? You are disenfranchised and the dems accuse you of their crime and the Tennessean carries their story. Get this, the dems who controlled all houses of the state were so happy with their divisions of congressional districts that from 1902 for sixty years they refused to reapportion the districts and finally relinquished when the US Supreme Court ordered reapportionment in 1962. Let's now act to have this injustice righted. Let's also lobby all of our representatives to NOT do to them what they did to us. We'll reap what we sow. Trust me, justice will prevail.

With the 2010 census now being complete, the new republican legislative body has a chance to right this wrong and to insure that conservative, fair policies and block redrawing of the districts takes place January 11, at the beginning of the next legislative session.

J. Lee Douglas is a practicing dentist in Brentwood Tennessee. He is married, father of four and grandfather of five. He established a Christian dental/medical clinic in Iraq in 1996 and had done oil and gas exploration in West Africa and lived for several years in Switzerland.  He is a local political activist and a Middle Tennessee leader in the TEA party movement and helped start the 9-12 Project Tennessee within 3 months of President Obama’s taking office. Prior to that time he had not been involved in political activity.

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