The Tennessee General Assembly cannot unilaterally shrink the size of Nashville's Metro Council, a panel of judges ruled 2-1 Monday, finding a 2023 law violated a state constitutional amendment protecting local sovereignty. The state has 30 days to appeal the ruling.
The court found the part of the law which established a 20-member cap on councils "applies, and was designed to apply, to Metro alone." Because lawmakers did not seek the approval of Nashville voters, the law violated the Home Rule Amendment of the Tennessee Constitution, Nashville Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal and Chancellor Jerri S. Bryant of the 10th District Chancery Court in southeast Tennessee ruled.
The decision continues the city's undefeated record in its fight to retain local control of Nashville after the General Assembly passed a handful of bills attempting to take over various aspects of the city's governance in 2023.
“I’m pleased with the court's decision to allow Nashville to have the authority to choose the size of its Metropolitan Council," Mayor Freddie O'Connell said in a written statement. "I’m grateful to Director of Law Wally Dietz and his team for their excellent work throughout this litigation. The Metro Charter gives Nashvillians the right to determine the size of our Metro Council, and as recently as 2015, we decisively concluded we prefer 40 members.”
Associate Metro Law Director for Litigation Allison Bussell said the ruling "meaningfully preserves the will of Nashville voters."
Madison County Judge Joseph T. Howell disagreed and wrote that because the other two metropolitan governments in Tennessee must maintain compliance with the law, it does not just apply to Nashville and therefore complies with the Home Rule Amendment.
The bills that sought to exert more control over Nashville’s affairs were seen as retaliation for the Metro Council shooting down a draft agreement to host the 2024 Republican National Convention, which effectively took the city out of the running and handed the convention to its this year's host, Milwaukee.
The laws passed by the state — including the council size bill and ones giving the state a greater say over Nashville's sports authority and airport authority boards and one to make it easier to demolish the Nashville Fairgrounds, to name only the ones the city challenged in court — did not specifically name Nashville but applied to counties with a metropolitan form of government and more than 500,000 people, which leaves just Nashville.
Lawmakers said they created the bill to cap metropolitan councils at 20 members in the interest of efficiency. At 40 members,Nashvillehas the largest local governing body in the state and the third-largest council in the country, trailing New York and Chicago.
More:How much has Nashville spent in lawsuits against the state? 'It's been exhausting'
Nashville sued the state over the law in March 2023. The city argued the law violates the Tennessee Constitution's Home Rule Amendment, which requires laws that exert control over a particular local government be passed locally, either by a vote put to residents or the local legislative body.
The law also required a breakneck implementation timeline for Nashville, which the city argued would have caused "chaos" and disrupted last year's Metro Council elections. A three-judge panel in April 2023 blocked the law from going into effect for that election.
Bussell argued before the three-judge panel in May that the law is powerless now that the timeline to enforce it has passed. Bussell said "the act crumbles underneath itself."
"The Metro Council Reduction Act was one of several General Assembly efforts to impose its will on Metro Nashville in ways that the Tennessee Constitution expressly prohibits," a statement from Bussell sent after the ruling reads in part. "We are thrilled that the Court agreed."
Metropolitan governments combine county and city governments into one. Voters approved the consolidation of Nashville and Davidson County's governments in 1962, making it the first city in the country to achieve "true consolidation," Metro's website states.
In Metro's four lawsuits stemming from the 2023 bills that affected Nashville, judges have repeatedly ruled in its favor on both intermediary and final decisions. This comes even after the state passed a law requiring lawsuits against the state be heard by three judges rather than one to offset any supposed bias by Nashville judges.
Between two other final decisions in the cases, the state appealed one and let the other stand. Metro and the state are filing briefs at the Tennessee Court of Appeals over the constitutionality of a state law that took the majority of the Metro Nashville Airport Authority's seats away from its current members and gave the power to appoint the majority of the board to the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker.
The challenge to the law that would have replaced nearly half of the members of the local sports authority with state-appointed members was paused in court while this case over the council size law played out, so lawyers for the city and state may pick it up again soon.
In a statement, a Tennessee Attorney General's Office spokesperson said the office is reviewing the ruling before making a decision about an appeal.
Melissa Brown contributed to this report.
Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him atemealins@gannett.comor follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter,@EvanMealins.
