Nashville, Milwaukee and the RNC

Nashville Tennessean
·2 min read

Good morning!

Welcome to Your Week, our exclusive newsletter where each Sunday we feature our best coverage and highlight what we have coming up during the week ahead.

I'm politics and investigations editor Duane Gang. 

🐘 It's official. Nashville is not getting the 2024 Republican National Convention. On Friday, the RNC picked Milwaukee to host the event.

There will be strong views about this, for sure. Progressive Metro Council members successfully fought off efforts to bring the convention here, giving them a clear win. But at what cost?

Metro Council members voted 10-22 with three abstentions on Aug. 2 to reject a draft agreement to bring the Republican National Convention to Music City.
Metro Council members voted 10-22 with three abstentions on Aug. 2 to reject a draft agreement to bring the Republican National Convention to Music City.

The battle over whether to try and secure the convention was the latest spat between Democratic Nashville and state Republicans, who dominate up the street at the state Capitol — as Metro reporter Cassandra Stephenson and statehouse reporter Adam Friedman write in a new analysis this morning. 

Will GOP lawmakers retaliate against Nashville? Will Gov. Bill Lee?

Lee earlier this summer said no, but lawmakers might have other plans come January when a new Tennessee General Assembly convenes.

Okay, but what about the view from Wisconsin? Milwaukee was all set to host the Democratic National Convention in 2020 until the COVID-19 pandemic upended those plans.

So why not the Republican one? As Wisconsin politics reporter Bill Glauber of our sister paper the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes, it started 11 months ago with a mailed invitation to VISIT Milwaukee president and chief executive Peggy Williams-Smith.

Don't miss his piece on how the city secured the convention on what turned out to be a unanimous RNC voice vote.

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— Duane W. Gang, The Tennessean

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville, Milwaukee and the RNC