By State Senator Page Walley
When our General Assembly meets in January, one of the top issues on the agenda will be reapportionment of the state’s House, Senate and congressional districts. It is an arduous task done every 10 years after the U.S. Census is completed. The census figures were released last month, prompting the speakers of both the House and Senate in our Tennessee General Assembly to appoint special redistricting committees to begin the process of drawing new maps.
The purpose of redistricting is to ensure citizens in Tennessee have equal representation. This right is rooted in both the federal and state constitutions and has been ruled upon by the courts numerous times. The most famous case is the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Tennessee’s Baker v. Carr, which set the “one man – one vote” standard used in redistricting nationwide.
Another court decision, in accordance with the State Constitution, requires the General Assembly to keep counties as whole as possible while redistricting our Tennessee Senate, using minimal variances in population to ensure equal representation requirements are still met. In addition, there are court requirements in accordance with the Voting Rights Act to preserve majority minority districts. This is a district in which the majority of the constituents are of a racial or ethnic minority.
The 2020 census saw Tennessee grow 8.9 percent over the past ten years. Comparatively, the U.S. resident population grew at 7.4%. The ideal population for the 33 State Senate districts in Tennessee is now 209,419; while the 99-member House of Representative districts should number 69,806 residents each. Tennessee’s nine-member congressional districts should be reapportioned to the ideal population of 767,871 for each district.
Tennessee’s population growth, however, has varied greatly across the state. The most dramatic change has been the rapid growth in the ring of counties surrounding Davidson County. Some counties in our most western and eastern portions of our state have seen little to no growth. This means the General Assembly will have to make needed adjustments to district maps to accommodate this shift in population in accordance with constitutional and court requirements. So our District 26, which currently has about 194,000 residents, will need to grow in size.
Lt. Governor Randy McNally and House Speaker Cameron Sexton have set up bipartisan committees to take on the task of redistricting. Both committees are committed to an open and transparent redistricting process. They have also offered the public an opportunity to use state-of-the-art software to construct their plan. Via the Senate redistricting website, members of the public will be able to access the Senate’s ESRI GIS software to create a map using the new census data. Maps created using other software solutions can be imported into ESRI for the purpose of submission.
Plans must include the whole state, comply with the Tennessee Constitution and the Voting Rights Act and stay within certain ideal population ranges. The full list of submission guidelines and training materials are available on the Senate’s redistricting page. Maps by members of the general public must be submitted by Monday, Nov. 22. You can find the links to the Senate redistricting sites at:
https://capitol.tn.gov/senate/committees/redistricting.html
https://tnsen-redistricting.esriemcs.com/redistricting/
As always, please contact my office if I can be of any help to you at sen.page.walley@capitol.tn.gov or 615-741-2368.
