State Supreme Court Upholds Law Cutting Metro Council in Half

The Tennessee Supreme Court issued two consequential opinions on Monday that pave the way for a dramatically reduced Metro Council and state control of the city’s airport. 

The opinions — both authored by Justice Sarah K. Campbell — rejected arguments from the city that challenged two 2023 state laws setting a 20-member limit on Metro Council and constituting a new governing body to replace the Metro Nashville Airport Authority. Metro attorneys are still contesting the airport takeover via another ongoing lawsuit in federal court.

City leaders had already been preparing for the political earthquake. Currently, 40 representatives sit on the Metro Council: 35 district representatives and five at-large officials elected countywide. All council seats, the mayor and the vice mayor are up for election in August 2027, and this court ruling starts off a chain of events that will reshape local politics. Twenty members is a cap, not a required number, and the Metro Planning Department previously published maps consolidating the county into 15 and 17 districts. 

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"Nashville’s Council size was set by our community, and our charter should only be changed by our voters — not by the state legislature,” Metro Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell says in a statement. “We’ll review our options and keep fighting for Nashville’s right to govern itself."

While state lawmakers originally passed council reduction legislation in 2023, additional legislation this year “cured” potential legal defects according to the state's Supreme Court judges. The city’s other argument appeals to a legal requirement that a county legislative body not exceed 25 members under the state constitution’s exemption clause. The city says that both caps, 20 and 25, cannot be true simultaneously. The Supreme Court disagrees, opining that the exemption clause does not create “freestanding immunity from restrictions originating elsewhere.”

The opinion remanded the case to a lower court, mainly a procedural step that will precipitate a string of events before expected city elections next summer.