It’s been two years since state legislators passed a law that would slash the size of Nashville’s 40-member Metro Council. In response, Metro sued. After the city saw some victories in the lower courts, the latest ruling sided with the state — and a smaller council.
Now, Metro is requesting to take the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court, citing constitutional violations.
Civil Rights era history
The council has consisted of 40 members since Metro’s inception.
In 1963, Nashville became the first Metropolitan government in the United States. When voters approved the consolidation of the city and county governments, the size of the council was a factor.
The first shot at consolidation — a 1958 referendum — included a proposal for a 21-member council. Voters rejected it.
Four years later, another consolidation referendum was drafted. The proposal looked different from the first try: satellite cities were permitted to retain their charters and handle certain functions within their boundaries. And there was a larger, 40-member council — helping voters who were concerned about representation for Black Nashvillians to get on board.
“The number 40 is not some random number. There’s a history behind it,” Metro Law director Wally Dietz said. “It has to do to making sure that our council is reflective of the residents who live here.”
That history is just one of the reasons city leaders — and many councilmembers — are against a smaller body.
The council is made up of 35 district council members, plus five “at-large” representatives elected by the whole city. It is the third-largest council in the country after New York and Chicago, although many places have separate city and county governments.
Councilmember Delishia Porterfield contends the size of the body helps ensure diversity.
“The council very closely represents many demographics of our city and county,” Porterfield said. “We have council members that identify as Black, immigrant. We have our first Haitian American, we have a Vietnamese American council member, we have a Muslim American council member. We have a Latina council member. We have council members that represent the LGBTQIA+ community.”
Porterfield says that even if racial diversity was maintained in a smaller council, socioeconomic diversity would be lost. With candidates vying for fewer seats, campaigns become more competitive and more expensive. This can be a barrier for lower income candidates.
“Historically, minority candidates and candidates that come from working class backgrounds have not been able to fundraise at the levels of other candidates,” Porterfield said. “If you are coming from a background where there’s a low socioeconomic status, and your friends and family and community and supporters don’t have a lot of money to invest in supporting campaigns, but now the campaigns are getting significantly more expensive because the race is getting more competitive, you risk losing that diversity.”
Other concerns
There’s also worry that larger districts — whether in population or just sprawl — make it harder to connect with constituents.
And there’s the feeling among officials that this state law is against the will of the people who voted in 1962.
“This ruling, if it stays, is a slap on that history, the intentionality of the people of Nashville wanting a government that is representative,” Councilmember Zulfat Suara said. “People went and voted twice to say ‘this is what we want.'”
Not only did voters create the 40-member body 60 years ago, but they also upheld that size in 2015, when a referendum sought to shrink the council.
“If the people of Davidson County feel like the council is too big for whatever reason, then the state should have allowed us to go to the ballot and for the people of Davidson County to vote,” Suara said. “We’re losing the voice of the people of Nashville.”
In passing the new law, the state argued that smaller councils are more efficient. House Majority Leader William Lamberth sponsored the legislation in 2023.
“Twenty is the maximum because you will find very few successful and effective cities or any group, quite frankly, that goes beyond 20,” Lamberth said during a House Floor session in 2023. “Group dynamics get to a point where it simply doesn’t work very well together.”
Councilmember Suara, though, says the council has become more efficient — they batch approve a lot more measures on the “consent” agenda than they used to, making meetings much shorter.
But, she also says efficiency isn’t everything — deliberation is important.
“People don’t want a governing body that rubber stamps,” Suara said. “They don’t want a governing body that all goes the same way and they don’t deliberate. I think we have a very diverse community, diverse views, diverse thoughts, and all of those should be brought into the conversation.”
Metro’s arguments
The state law caps all councils in Tennessee at 20. And while it applies to the whole state, Nashville is the only council bigger than that.
In their request to the state Supreme Court, Metro argues that the law is unfairly targeting them.
They’re also arguing that Tennessee’s constitution gives Metros the power to set their own council size, and that only voter ballot measures that can change them over time.
“What we’re fighting for is the right of the people of Metropolitan Nashville to make the decision about what the size of their council is,” Dietz said. “The Constitution gives them that right. And it’s up to the people of Nashville — not the legislators — to decide the size of our legislative body.”
Metro Legal has compiled all of those arguments into it’s request to appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court.
However, the court does not have to take the case.
If they don’t, Nashville’s Metro Council will be cut in half for the 2027 election. In that case, there would be some debate around what the new council districts would look like and how many at-large, countywide members there would be.
Metro did rush to draft new maps back in 2023, when the law initially passed. Two proposals were put forth: one with 15 districts, plus five at-large seats. The other consisted of 17 districts and three at-large members.
Dietz says the city isn’t in as tight of a bind as 2023. (When the law was initially passed, a council election was only a few months away, leaving planners scrambling to re-draw districts. Lower court victories preserving the 40-member council prevented those maps from being used). Still, timing is tight, given another election in 2027.
“There is no timetable for [the Supreme Court to respond], but we are hopeful they will respond sooner than later,” Dietz said. “We are having conversations about what happens if the worst-case scenario happens. We’re very hopeful that the court will take our case and will agree with at least one our arguments.
For now, Nashville has two more years of its 40-member body. But, six decades of a large council could be on the line if the Tennessee Supreme Court doesn’t take the case, or doesn’t side with the city.
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