Analysis: Tennessee’s congressional delegation is particularly partisan

Knoxville Republican Tim Burchett is the member of Tennessee’s congressional delegation most likely to reach across the aisle. But taken as a whole, the people who this state’s voters have sent to Washington D.C. rank pretty low for bipartisanship.

Each year the Lugar Center think tank and Georgetown University examine how often members of the House and Senate work with their peers in the other party to cosponsor bills — and how much support their proposals get from legislators on the other side of the aisle. They also compare that to data from past years. If you have a feeling the current Congress is especially partisan these days, the numbers agree.

Even within that new norm, Republican Andy Ogles, representing Tennessee’s 5^th District, is among the 15 most firmly partisan members of the House, just a few slots away from Marjorie Taylor Greene. The only Tennessee Representatives in the top 50% for cooperative actions are Burchett and Memphis Democrat Steve Cohen.

In the Senate, Marsha Blackburn sits right at the middle of the chamber’s ranking, while fellow Repubican Bill Hagerty is in 87th place.

Tennessee’s rankings

The complete list is available here, with an explanation of how the metric works. Basically, the less bipartisan a legislator’s track record is, the farther their index drops below zero. And the ranking is sorted so that the most bipartisan legislators hold the No. 1 slots for their chambers.

House representatives

District 1 Rep. Diana Harshbarger, R-Kingsport; rank: 225; index: -0.50359

District 2 Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville; rank: 122; index: 0.04398

District 3 Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Ooltewah; rank: 386; index: -1.29689

District 4 Rep. Scott Desjarlais, R-Sherwood; rank: 378; index -1.22748

District 5 Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Columbia; rank: 422; index: -1.93334

District 6 Rep. John Rose, R- Cookeville; rank: 197; index: -0.33671

District 7 Rep. Mark Green, R-Clarksville; rank: 332; index: -0.99526

District 8 Rep. David Kustoff, R-Germantown; rank: 212; index: -0.44921

District 9 Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis; rank: 160; index: -0.14344

Senators

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R; rank: 47; index: -0.07916

Sen. Bill Hagerty, R; rank: 87; index: -1.01023