Republicans eye Nashville crack-up to gain House seat
| Republicans plotting to maximize their advantages in state legislatures across the country during the decennial redistricting process are considering cracking apart Tennessee’s largest city, an ambitious move that could signal how aggressively the party will try to rig maps in its favor in the coming months.
In preliminary conversations, top Republicans in the Volunteer State have contemplated dramatically redrawing the boundaries of a district anchored in Nashville, one of just two U.S. House seats in Tennessee held by a Democratic member of Congress. The move would put the squeeze on Rep. Jim Cooper (D), the dean of Tennessee’s congressional delegation and a presence in Washington since he first won his district in 1982, save for an eight-year absence after he lost a race for a U.S. Senate seat in 1994. |
