Stockard on the Stump: Once called a RINO, Tennessee governor does Trump’s bidding

RINO no more.

A year and a half after President Donald Trump referred to him as a Republican in Name Only, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is battling for a starting spot on the president’s team.

He’s impressing the coach with hustle.

After attending an April 28 White House visit by British King Charles III — sitting on the front row at Trump’s invitation — three days later Lee took up the president’s request to call a special session so state lawmakers could redistrict congressional seats, bumping a reliable Democratic seat in the form of longtime U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen. The move gerrymandered Memphis into Williamson County in Middle Tennessee 200 miles away, combining it with multiple white Republican counties in an effort to give the GOP a 9-0 advantage in Congress and bolster a president whose popularity is flagging as the November vote approaches.

Typically, U.S. presidents, no matter the party, stagger with voters at midterm, and Trump seems worried or he wouldn’t be trying to stack the deck. Lee is glad to oblige him as they enjoy a good relationship, even after they clashed over endorsements in the 2024 election and Trump referred to him as the dreaded RINO.

Asked Wednesday about when Trump told him to call the special session and make a new Republican-leaning seat happen, Lee said, “I have conversations with the president on a regular basis about what he wants. But this is about what members of the General Assembly want. At the end of the day, this is about what the elected officials in Tennessee believe is right and best for the voters in Tennessee to represent the people that have elected them into office.”

That’s funny. Some Republicans told the Lookout they went to Nashville two weeks after the legislature adjourned its regular session because the governor called them to return when the U.S. Supreme Court upended a key provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act designed to create and preserve Black voting blocks. Readers might recall that little law Congress passed more than 60 years ago to give Black Americans a voice at the ballot box and in Congress.

We’ve made so much racial progress in America, though, that the Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom, turned back the hands of time about 200 years, enabling affluent voters in Williamson and Maury counties to control the congressional votes of Black and Democratic voters in Shelby County.

“I think the General Assembly had the obligation and the authority to look at maps,” Lee said Wednesday after an event in Clay County to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday. He added that nine states have redrawn maps this year and that the General Assembly made new lines to “serve Tennesseans best.” 

The Cook Political Report found that Republicans have a big edge in the race to the bottom. California and Utah could pick up as many as six total Democratic seats, according to the report, while Texas, Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida could net about 15 Republican seats. Virginia’s effort to create more Democratic districts was nixed by its Supreme Court.

Political leaders will hear what they want. 

But Lee must have borrowed earplugs from some of the Democrats who sneaked them into the House chamber on the final day. Several witnesses said it was the biggest ruckus they’d ever seen in the Capitol, including one reporter who couldn’t hear himself think after the final House vote as sirens, whistles and jeers filled the chamber.

In light of the uproar, how do you justify changing the law in the middle of the game, a move that sets bad precedent?

“I think that rulings across the country set up the scenario for states to redistrict,” Lee said.

The deflection is blinding, considering Lee called the session and signed the bills into law.

But this development isn’t shocking, because redistricting allows new lines to be drawn for political purposes, which makes no sense regardless of which party holds the crayons, but is a harsh reality of the system. It remains to be seen whether the new maps, which turned the new 9th and 5th districts much bluer, will come back to haunt Republican fortunes.

The bigger problem is that Tennessee lawmakers split a naturally Black district in the middle of an apportionment cycle, using outdated census figures from 2020, when everything shows Shelby’s population is waning and Middle Tennessee’s is waxing.

Lawmakers had to change the law prohibiting redistricting at mid-decade and then ended the requirement that county commissions notify all voters about election and polling changes by mail. Instead, people will have to check election commission websites to find out what to do in the August primary and November general elections, even though not all voters have Internet connections or computers.

Of course, with all of these alterations, they don’t even know who’s running yet. Lawmakers also extended the March 10 filing deadline to May 15 (today), and some candidates are hedging their bets that the courts will strike down the new laws and enable them to run in the districts they qualified for two months ago. (Is anyone getting a headache yet?)

Yet Lee said the legislature’s steps to notify voters are “appropriate,” even though a similar situation in 2022 led to 10,000 to 15,000 Davidson County voters going to the wrong polling places. (The writer of the Stump is going to go out on a limb and predict that elections this year will run into all sorts of mishaps.)

Four lawsuits have been filed already to stop the redistricting plan, putting a limbo-laced election into even greater peril.

“I think it’s really important that the courts will weigh in on this. The legislature has followed the authority and the process that they believe fairly and appropriately divides districts, as they have done for generations as has happened across the country. And now the courts, because of these challenges to these, will weigh in and that branch of government will lean into the appropriateness of these maps,” Lee said.

That statement might make some readers think the governor believes the plan is shaky, at best.

But he also said, “You gotta remember maps are drawn by representatives elected by the people.”

Thanks for the civics lesson. But voters in Memphis didn’t elect Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, House Speaker Cameron Sexton or Lt. Gov. Randy McNally. And in 2024, they sure didn’t back Trump, who made the ultimate call to crack up their congressional district.

“Yesterday / All my troubles seemed so far away / Now it looks as though they’re here to stay” The Beatles – “Yesterday”