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Metro will be required to cut the Metro Council in half after a split Tennessee Court of Appeals panel on Tuesday ruled that a state law that would cut the Metro Council in half is constitutional.
In 2023, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a law capping all metro legislative bodies at 20 members. Metro Nashville immediately sued, arguing the law was a clear violation of the Home Rule Amendment of the Tennessee Constitution, which prohibits the legislature from passing bills that target a local government. Though the state has other metropolitan governments, only Metro Nashville's has more than 20 members in its legislative body. After a temporary injunction in April 2023 to prevent “upheaval” in the 2023 Metro elections, a three-judge panel made the injunction permanent in July 2024, writing that the law breached the Home Rule.
Three-judge panel rules act mandating city to cut number of members is unconstitutional in 2-1 judgment
But according to Appellate Judges Steven Stafford and Carma McGee, the trial court was wrong in applying the Home Rule Amendment to this case. The judges found that while another 2023 law from the state legislature attempting to take control of Metro’s Airport Authority was a clear breach of the Home Rule Amendment, this act “clearly applies to all counties that have formed or will form a consolidated metropolitan government,” and therefore does not violate the Tennessee Constitution.
“We are understandably disappointed and concerned about the ruling’s implications on local sovereignty,” Metro Legal's associate law director Allison Bussell says in a statement. “But we are also encouraged by Judge [Kenny] Armstrong’s compelling dissent. We are digesting the ruling and considering our options.”
Armstrong dissented from the majority opinion, arguing that while the state constitution places a 25-member cap on the number of seats a local government body can have, it specifically exempts metropolitan governments from that cap.
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“It is undisputed that Metro qualifies for the exemption contained in the Article,” Armstrong writes. “The obvious reason for exempting a consolidated government from the restriction on the size of its membership is to accommodate the far larger population of a consolidated government as compared to a single county or municipality.”
Metro is likely to appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court.
The 20-member cap would go into effect for the 2027 Metro elections. Metro officials were already in the process of developing new council maps to comply with the 20-member maximum in 2023. The Metro Planning Department has already created maps for both a 15-district option with five at-large members and a 17-member option with three at-large members.
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