Tennessee Legislature To Defend Border With Its Own Resolution

State legislators are getting serious enough about the impending border dispute with Georgia to plan a resolution to defend the status quo.

A Georgia state senator this week said the whole dispute – moving Georgia’s border north by about a mile to conform to post-colonial land descriptions –is about Georgia claiming a share of the water flowing through the Tennessee River.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Tennessee legislative leaders laughed off Georgia’s resolution to re-survey the border. Now, Nashville Representative Gary Odom says the state has to take a stand.

“Hopefully we’ll start moving through the process next week to put our General Assembly on record as to what we think about those shenanigans that appear to be taking place to our South.”

Lawmakers say until Georgia unveils some legal strategy, it’s hard to envision a response. Until then, the battle of the resolutions, as some politicians have called it, goes on.

 

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State Representative Henry Fincher of Cookeville, a lawyer, looked up the federal case of Illinois v. Kentucky from 1991. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, says Fincher, that a “long acquiescence in the possession of territory under a claim of right and in the exercise of dominion and sovereignty over it, is conclusive of the rightful authority.” Or, in layman’s terms…

“The principle of adverse possession applies to these boundary disputes between states, not just private parties. In even starker laymans’ terms, if you fenced it, and thought it was yours, it doesn’t matter what the deed says, or what the act says, It’s yours.”

Fincher said the issue of water rights – as opposed to the boundary lines – is different in the east than it is in the water-parched west.

“Since we’re east of the Mississippi, basic water rights are the classic English water rights, the riparian water rights, and what that means is, if you live next to the stream you can use it.”

House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh and others, including Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, say the issue is driven by Georgia’s mighty thirst. Ramsey says it’s simple as to why the border hadn’t been threshed out since 1818.

“Atlanta wasn’t there 200 years ago!”

Ramsey said water sharing between states isn’t uncommon – one case involves the Sutherland Community in his district getting water from Dasmascus, Virginia.

“Things like that can work out, but it takes the cooperation of both sides for those things to happen.”