The Tennessee House of Representatives is set to vote today on the proposed redistricting plan for the Tennessee House, the State Senate, and for Tennessee's Congressional delegation. The Senate is slated to meet in a rare Friday session to vote on the measure so that it gives candidates enough time to qualify under their new districts. This hasn't been an easy redistricting process in any sense of the word. There is a movement among some Republicans to protest, for example, what has happened in Senator Kerry Roberts' (R-Springfield) 18th Senate District, where he has been drawn into Senator Jim Summerville's (R-Dickson) 25th District. While this process hasn't been easy, it is worth noting that it is the Democratic Leadership have decided that they want whine with their medicine on redistricting, and are now complaining that the Republican plan dillutes the influence of cities. This writer respectfully submits that the Democrats are not the least bit concerned about urban representation in a proper sense, and are more concerned that the new State Legislative and Senate districts dillute the exaggerated influence of Democrats in places like Knox and Shelby County, where for years Democrats drew districts designed to insure they were elected, while rural and connected suburban areas which tend to vote Republican were maginalized.
This new district map essentially does the reverse, and insures that cities, which are losing population, are not overrepresented in the next General Assembly, hence the real source of the Democrats' concern. There was very little in the way of complaint from Democrats about under-representation of rural Tennessee and East Tennessee back when they drew the districts and drew them to manufacture Democratic majorities that were padded at best and an outright fabrication of reality at worst. Now that it is time to administer the medication to the patient-Tennessee's electoral system-that Democrats made sick with years of neglect and taking their majorities for granted, Tennessee Democrats do not want to take their medicine. As they know very well from experience, the party that runs the General Assembly calls the tune in Tennessee-see how we felt all those years?
In related news, Tennessee House "Speaker Emeritus" Jimmy Naifeh (D-Covington) made a public spectacle of himself on the House floor yesterday, complaining that the House was conducting other business with motions on the floor-motions that had already been voted on. Speaker Naifeh also complained about having to sit under the Rule during Roll Call and Announcements. Poor Jimmy. Word from a source on the Hill informs The Examiner that Naifeh is aware that his redrawn district-a district which for years was drawn to always insure that he was re-elected, will nowe be virtually impossible for him to win. Hence, Jimmy Naifeh either must wrestle with getting beaten at the polls-he only survived by 500 votes in 2010-or he'll be going back to Covington for his retirement coon supper.
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