Metropolitik is a recurring column featuring the Scene’s analysis of Metro dealings.
On Oct. 11, Metro Nashville’s legal department brought a fourth lawsuit against the state, protesting an attempt by lawmakers to wrest control of the city’s sports authority. The 13-person body is Nashville’s go-between for the Titans, Sounds, Predators and Nashville SC, each team’s stadium facility, and hundreds of millions in bond debt.
Metro legal director Wally Dietz and his team of city attorneys made what has now become a familiar argument: By singling out Nashville, the state violates its own constitution, which has included protections for certain cities and municipalities since lawmakers adopted the Home Rule Amendment at the Tennessee Constitutional Convention of 1953. This provision has earned Dietz tentative wins against state attempts to cut the size of Nashville’s city council and interfere with controversial NASCAR renovations at The Fairgrounds Nashville. Metro is using Home Rule protections to fight takeovers of the airport authority and sports authority.
Unless it gives a local legislative body final say, says the state constitution, “Any act of the General Assembly private or local in form or effect applicable to a particular county or municipality” is void. A second crucial Home Rule Amendment clause outlaws so-called “ripper bills,” legislation meant to remove local officials from office.
Nashville’s suits name Republican state leaders House Speaker Cameron Sexton, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and Gov. Bill Lee, the individuals legally responsible for laws passed by their government. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, obligated to defend the laws passed by state lawmakers, argues opposite Nashville. His office does not contend that these laws are necessary or just, only that they’re legal. The state’s defense consists of two parts. First, that appointed board members are not technically local officials; second, that these laws could apply to future municipalities, even if they only apply to Nashville today.
“We say that is fantasy,” Dietz tells the Scene. “Judges are agreeing with our theories and our interpretation of the constitution and case law. If we continue to obtain victories in trial court, I’m hopeful the legislature will figure out they cannot continue to do this.”
Each battle between Skrmetti and Dietz makes the gray area between state and local power a little more clear. Many legislators have built political careers railing against wasteful spending, promising constituents across they state they’d shrink government to simplify its role in the lives of Tennesseans. Six months after Tennessee’s spring legislative session, its highest-profile laws have gummed up courtrooms, failed constitutional muster, wrought havoc on the city’s airport and occupied teams of city and state lawyers.
In April, Nashville won a temporary injunction against the state law slashing the city’s 40-person council in half. A three-judge panel agreed that the timeline was too tight and only applicable to Nashville, and Dietz and Skrmetti agreed to postpone arguments over a final, permanent injunction against the law to 2024. In September, a different three-judge panel sided with the city again, when the state tried to lower the voting threshold necessary for Metro Council to approve expensive upgrades to the fairgrounds. In addition to the state’s mounting losses against Nashville, lawmakers’ attempted ban on public drag performances (“adult cabaret” including by “male or female impersonators,” in the legislation’s words) met a barrage of legal challenges and will likely head to trial. Judges in Memphis and Knoxville blocked the anti-drag law over the summer before a three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned their injunctions, setting up a protracted legal fight over Tennesseans’ First Amendment rights that continues in federal court. (The 6th Circuit has also issued rulings in the state’s favor, however, including upholding state laws banning gender-affirming care for minors and banning abortion.)
The Home Rule Amendment has been gold for Metro Legal. The amendment is clearly written and clearly violated, allowing for 3-0 wins in Nashville’s first two cases. Both NASCAR and council reduction rulings have strengthened Nashville’s final two lawsuits, the sports authority and airport takeovers.
“Right now, everybody agrees [the law] only applies to Metro Nashville,” Metro Assistant Attorney Melissa Roberge told the court during oral arguments about the airport takeover earlier this month. “That leads to the question of: Can it be applied anywhere else? Two of this court’s sister courts have answered that question in the council reduction act case and the speedway case.”
State attorney J.P. Urban could barely make it three sentences without being challenged by judges — particularly Judge Zachary Walden, the panel’s East Tennessee representative — to clarify or substantiate his claims. A 2021 state law requires three judges from Tennessee’s three Grand Divisions to oversee challenges to state legislation. Judges Anne Martin and Mark Hayes joined Walden in scrutinizing the state’s defense, which argued that the airport board exists so far outside of Metro that it is a “separate government entity” not entitled to protections, a precedent set in an unsuccessful 2022 challenge to Gov. Lee’s school voucher program.
Analysis: From drag bans to slashing the Metro Council, this legislative session has seen a slate of bills aimed at Davidson County
“Is there a limit on the legislature’s ability to simply assume control of the hospital?” asked Hayes moments before the state concluded its arguments. “The airport? The levee and drainage district, which is more prevalent in my area? Or some other development board, like an industrial development board, if the legislature decides it wants to assert control?”
According to Dietz, the sports authority case will proceed along similar lines. A favorable ruling on the airport case — expected in late October — would be powerful case law for the sports authority, allowing Metro to build on its own wins in front of new judges.
“We all need to change the channel in terms of the relationship between the state and Metro,” says Dietz. “It is not healthy. It is just not healthy for the state to be attacking our local government, its own largest economic engine. I’m hopeful that these lawsuits will help recalibrate the relationship.”
Nashville’s initial complaint hammered the laws not because they’re unjust but because they flagrantly violate existing protections. McNally, Sexton and Lee were served last week. As of this writing, the state has not yet responded to Metro’s latest suit.
