Megan Barry should run for Congress as should other Nashville residents who feel ignored
Former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry announced that she’s considering a run for Congress in 2024.
Frankly, I am not surprised as I recently saw Barry at two events in the same week and she was working the room with community members, elected officials and civic leaders.
I thought to myself, “Maybe she’s planning a political comeback,” and here we are. More on her background below.
If she runs and wins the Democratic primary election in District 7, she will face incumbent U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Clarksville
She released a statement hammering the three-term member of Congress and former state senator.
“I believe Mark Green has repeatedly ignored the needs of Tennesseans as rural hospitals close and more people die from overdose deaths,” Barry said. “He supports extreme bans on abortion and he and Congress have done nothing about gun violence. He deserves to be challenged.”
It would be an uphill battle as District 7 elected Green with 60% of the vote in 2022.
But Barry’s announcement as a prominent person brings up two critical issues for citizens to consider:
There is no one representing Nashville, Tennessee in Congress who lives in Nashville
No incumbent is guaranteed re-election and democracy benefits from competition
Other Nashville-based citizens should also think about the opportunity to serve Middle Tennessee constituents in Congress. Citizens deserve to compare their platforms and ideas, and ideally all will be willing to debate each other for the sake of transparency.
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How blue Nashville was gerrymandered into three red districts
In 2022, the GOP-dominated Tennessee General Assembly redrew the congressional map of the state, as is customary every 10 years after the U.S. Census.
There are nine U.S. House districts, and Nashville-Davidson County residents were historically served in one district by one member of Congress, who happened to be a Democrat.
Republican lawmakers effectively dissected Nashville for political advantage. The move worked as Republicans now hold a slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Nashville’s last Democratic congressperson, Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, chose not to seek re-election in 2022, after 20 years representing District 5 (he also represented District 4 for 12 years in the 1980s and 1990s).
Now, Music City is in three different districts – Nos. 5, 6 and 7 – and the will of Nashville voters was diluted. Remember, nearly 65% of Davidson County voters chose Joe Biden as president in 2020 though Tennessee picked Trump by 61% in 2016 and 2020.
Today, Democrats are in the minority in their three red districts where the members of Congress hail from Maury County (Andy Ogles, R-District 5), Putnam County (John Rose, R-District 6) and Montgomery County (Green, R-District 7).
Recall the results from the House races in 2022:
District 5: Andy Ogles, R, 55.9% vs. Heidi Campbell, D, 42.3%
District 6: John Rose, R, 66.3% vs. Randal Cooper, D, 33.7%
District 7: Mark Green, R, 60% vs. Odessa Kelly, D, 38.1%
To put things in context, in his last election in 2020, Jim Cooper, who represented Davidson, Dickson and Cheatham counties, was unopposed in the general election, though he faced a competitive primary. In 2018, he beat his Republican opponent with nearly 68% of the vote.
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Can Megan Barry run for election even though she pleaded guilty to a felony?
Barry served as mayor from 2015 to 2018, resigning two-and-a-half years into a four-year term, due to a scandal involving a sexual relationship with her security detail head and inappropriate usage of taxpayer dollars, which led to her pleading guilty to a felony.
However, as a first-time offender and under the judicial diversion deal with prosecutors, she avoided being classified as a felon. She did not lose her voting rights and she fulfilled the terms of her three-year probation.
As a reminder to readers, The Tennessean Editorial Board, of which I am a member and lead writer, endorsed her for office in 2015, but we were also the first publication to call for her resignation.
Today, the former mayor is free to seek office anew if she chooses.
In fact, she should participate in civic life as an active citizen.
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Any challenger will have to build coalitions and cut through polarity
I recently exchanged emails with a reader on the issue of congressional representation.
The reader wrote: “Now that the state capital has three separate voices in D.C., and since they are in the majority party in the House, they give Nashville much more power in Washington than they had under (Jim) Cooper.”
This is technically true, but the fact remains that no one who lives in Nashville represents Nashville in Congress.
Green is the only one of the three U.S. representatives who has a field office in Nashville. That said, members of Ogles’ and Rose’s staff have attended local community events and meetings.
In 2024, when voters go to the polls, if they think their members of Congress have represented their interests in Washington, D.C., they will vote with their feet.
Whoever might challenge the incumbents from Nashville will have to build coalitions between urban, rural and suburban voters and create a message that transcends the polarized politics of the day.
David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He is an editorial board member of The Tennessean. He hosts the Tennessee Voices videocast and curates the Tennessee Voices and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters.. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @davidplazas.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Megan Barry might run for Congress because Nashville feels ignored
