Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) on Thursday announced that he will create the first-ever bipartisan House Select Committee on redistricting, as state legislators prepare to draw new legislative districts.
The committee, which will be tasked with navigating the process of analyzing state data to help draw new maps, will feature a total of 16 House members: 12 Republican and 4 Democratic members.
“As we continue reviewing the long-awaited statewide data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, I am excited to announce the first-ever bipartisan House Select Committee on Redistricting,” said Speaker Sexton in an emailed statement. “The makeup of this panel is representative of the distinctive voices of Tennesseans from across all three grand divisions of our state. I appreciate both my Republican and Democratic colleagues for their work as part of this panel, which will play a critical role in a transparent, public process that will produce both fair and constitutional redistricting plans representative of all Tennesseans.”
On the Republican side, members will include
Rep. Patsy Hazlewood (R-Signal Mountain)
Rep. Kevin Vaughan (R-Collierville)
Rep. Gary Hicks (R-Rogersville)
Rep. John Crawford (R-Bristol/Kingsport)
Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby)
Rep. John Holsclaw (R-Elizabethton)
Rep. William Lamberth (R-Portland)
Rep. Lowell Russell (R-Vonore)
Rep. Sam Whitson (R-Franklin)
Rep. Ryan Williams (R-Cookeville)
Further, Rep. Karen Camper (D-Memphis), Rep. Bob Freeman (D-Nashville), Rep. Antonio Parkinson (D-Memphis), and Rep. John Mark Windle (D-Livingston) will join the committee on the Democratic side.
Within the committee, Deputy Speaker Curtis Johnson (R-Clarksville) will serve as chairman, and Speaker Pro Tempore Pat Marsh (R-Shelbyville) is the committee’s vice-chair.
Lawmakers will face an uphill battle in their efforts to example U.S. Census data and create a map for the state. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the complete data from the Census Bureau was delayed many months. Therefore, the lawmakers will have less time to complete the project.
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Cooper Moran is a reporter for The Star News Network. Follow Cooper on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Cameron Sexton” by Cameron Sexton.
