Tennessee redistricting bill leads to complaints of gerrymandering | Georgiana Vines
The Tennessee Senate has passed a redistricting bill for the upper legislative body that Knox County Democrats say has split precincts in Knoxville’s inner-city, majority-Black neighborhoods, while Monday the House is scheduled to adopt a bill that pits two Democratic legislators in Knox County against each other.
Republicans dominate both state bodies in Nashville, and that would be expected to continue under proposed changes. Tennessee's Senate and House districts haven’t gotten as much attention across the state as the Congressional redistricting plan because of the dividing up of Davidson County into three districts by the Republican-led legislature. U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, a Nashville Democrat, presently represents the entire county.
Civil rights and community groups and the League of Women Voters were among those testifying before House and Senate committees to keep counties and communities together as much as possible. They said the proposed redistricting plans amount to gerrymandering.
“In fact, the proposed districts seem to unnecessarily split counties and communities of interest, especially ones of color. The failure to keep communities whole has an impact throughout our state and not just in our urban areas. The arbitrary slicing of rural and suburban communities through a partisan redistricting process does a disservice to our citizens,” said the League of Women Voters of Tennessee in a statement released Tuesday.
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Knoxville state reps Gloria Johnson, representing the present 13th District, and Sam McKenzie, representing the 15th District, both Democrats, are in the new 15th District based on their residences if the plan is approved for the House. A new district, the 30th, is created in Knox County and represents about 60 percent of Johnson’s present district. The 13th is assigned in the new plan to Rutherford County, which picks up one more House district because of its population growth, Johnson said.
The Senate, which has 33 members, voted on its own plan and the Congressional plan on Thursday and is scheduled to vote on the House plan Wednesday. When the House, with 99 members, votes on its own plan Monday, it also is scheduled to vote on Senate and Congressional redistricting.
A week ago, Knox County Democrats released a statement on Martin Luther King Day calling on the state Senate to revise its plan, which they said unconstitutionally splits Knoxville’s Black-majority neighborhoods between three districts.
“The map pairs Burlington with Farragut, Lonsdale with Tellico Village, and Morningside with Hardin Valley. In multiple cases, in fact, it appears to cut straight through majority-minority neighborhoods,” they said.
The Democrats provided demographics that showed District 5, represented by Lt. Gov. Randy McNally of Oak Ridge, presently has a 4.94 percent Black, voting-age population in Knoxville and would have 5.41 percent in the new plan; District 6, represented by Sen. Becky Massey of Knoxville, has 9.68 percent Black, voting-age population and would have 9.21 percent; and District 7, represented by Sen. Richard Briggs of Knoxville, has 8.23 Black, voting-age population and would have 7.02 in the new plan. All the Senators are Republicans. McNally’s district also includes all of Anderson and Loudon counties.
The source for the current Democratic figures was the Dave Redistricting App, and the source for the proposed figures was the official map provided by the Senate redistricting committee.
Massey, who chairs the Knox County legislative delegation, said the new Senate plan meets legal requirements and doesn’t change her district drastically.
“I like my district. It’s a diverse district. I’ve worked in each part of the district, lived in different parts of town and work hard to make myself accessible to everyone,” she said.
Jack Vaughan, Democratic field organizer, acknowledged the percentages are small “but there does appear to an evening out (of) the districts’ Black voting-age population – namely by decreasing the share in the 7th and increasing it in the 5th.”
“While it's a fairly small change, the Republican members still keep Knoxville split three ways and even more precisely cut up the city to achieve three districts more evenly balanced with their share of Black voters, non-white voters, and Democrats overall,” Vaughan said.
He said one way for a higher percentage of Black, voting-age population would be to use the city of Knoxville as a base for a district.
Massey said that idea is “insulting.”
“That would disrupt all districts. Not even Democrats did that (when they prevailed in the Legislature). African-Americans live in the county and other (voting precinct) districts,” she said.
Vaughan said new neighborhood and precinct splits in the Senate redistricting maps include Precinct 9, Mechanicsville, which previously was in District 7 and is now split between 5 and 7; Precinct 12, Morningside, previously in District 6 and now split between 6 and 7, and Precinct 15, Parkridge, previously in District 6 and now split between 6 and 7.
“You don't see precinct splits with such precision anywhere else in the county with these new maps – they are all in inner-city, majority-Black neighborhoods. These splits create a stretch of D7 that is a mere 1/4 mile, or just six city blocks, wide. As (Knox County Democratic chairman) Matt Shears has noted in his criticism of the maps, he can take his baby for a walk and cross the three districts in the Parkridge area in a mere 5-minute walk,” Vaughan said in an email.
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Johnson, interviewed Wednesday, said there were rumors some proposed maps could change and until then, she was not saying what her future plans are. “We’re expecting (legal) challenges,” she added.
All indications are she will not run against McKenzie, an African-American, and would move into the new district to seek another two-year term.
McKenzie’s district is what has become known during the legislative session as an “opportunity” district, which has a 35 percent nonwhite voting population, giving a minority an opportunity to win. Vaughan said the 15th District would gain the Lonsdale precinct and increase the nonwhite share of voters that is close to 30 percent.
The Sequoyah Hills voting precincts, heavily Democratic, are removed from Johnson’s district and put in the 18th District House seat represented by Republican Rep. Eddie Mannis. The move would help Mannis, who is more moderate than most of Knox County’s Republican House members.
UPDATE ON TVA DIRECTORS: President Joe Biden has renominated four TVA Board nominees after their nominations lapsed at the end of last year. They were originally nominated in April.
The four are Beth Geer, Nashville; Robert Klein, Chattanooga; Kimberly Lewis, Huntsville, Ala., and Michelle Moore, Richmond, Va. The nominees will now continue through the confirmation process and await a hearing date before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Committee.
Ben Wagner, the TVA Office of Inspector General nominee, also remains pending. His nomination will need to be considered by the Senate EPW Committee and Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Wagner had a career with TVA that spanned 38 years, of which 31 years were in the OIG office.
The board is operating with five of its nine authorized members. The terms of A.D. Frazier of Mineral Bluff, Ga., and Jeff Smith of Knoxville, former deputy for operations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, expire in May.
A HAGERTY FIRST: U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., has passed his first authored piece of legislation in the U.S. Senate. The bill, which Hagerty introduced with Senators Angus King, I-Maine, and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, would add key technologies impacting national security to the sectors that can utilize the FAST-41 improved federal permitting program, which will encourage development of these technologies in the U.S.
The legislation passed the Senate by voice vote on Jan. 14 and goes to the U.S. House of Representatives, where Hagerty is working to find a sponsor, a spokesman said. Hagerty was elected to the Senate in 2020.
Georgiana Vines is retired News Sentinel associate editor. She may be reached at gvpolitics@hotmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tennessee redistricting bill leads to complaints of gerrymandering
