With the Tennessee General Assembly set to open tomorrow, Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell and Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey releasing the likely Tennessee Congressional District map late last week, the the proposal set to become finalized early in the new session of the General Assembly. One thing that doesn't change is the compsition of the First Congressional District, in which this writer lives. Congressman Phil Roe's (R-Johnson City) will remain virtually the same, including taking in the 3rd civil district of Jefferson County (White Pine Precinct). The remaining 2/3rds of Jefferson County, however, won't be in the 3rd Congressional District represented by Congressman Chuck Fleischmann (R-Chattanooga) any longer, but will join Grainger, Claibourne, and part of Campbell Counties in a refomed 2nd Congressional District anchored in Knox County and represented by Tennessee's senior Member of Congress, John J. Duncan Jr. (R-Knoxville).
Congressman Roe had wanted to take in all of Jefferson County, but will instead be getting all of Sevier (he only had about 2/3rds of it before now). Congressman Fleischmann's 3rd District now reflects on the map what voters already knew in reality-that the southern part of the district is based in Chattanooga, while the northern part literally revolves around the national laboratory at Oak Ridge. That's not a bad thing, because every Congressional District has economic and political centers, but under the old map, Jefferson, Claibourne, and Grainger Counties often felt like outliers with very little in common with the rest of the 3rd District. Now, the 3rd District is largely filled with counties that naturally gravitate economically and politically toward Chattanooga and Oak Ridge, the 2nd District is largely filled with counties which have a natural relationship to its Knox County center, while the counties of Upper East Tennessee-including the part of Jefferson County left in the 1st Congressional District, naturally gravitate in the socio-political sphere of the Tri-Cities.
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