AG Skrmetti Declines to Appeal Injunction, Metro Nashville Council Reduction Expected to Go into Effect in 2027

by Jon Styf

 

Tennessee’s attorney general will not appeal a three-judge panel decision last week to block a bill intended to reduce Metro Nashville’s council from 40 to 20 members and will allow it to become law in 2027.

Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced on Monday that he would not appeal the injunction and attempt to have the law go into effect sooner. While the law applies to all metropolitan forms of government in the state, only Metro Nashville has a metropolitan council with more than 20 members.

“The Court enjoined only the transitional provisions that would require metropolitan governments to come into compliance in the short term with the law’s cap on the number of voting council/commission members,” Skrmetti said. “Apart from this narrow injunction, no other part of the law was affected.”

Skrmetti noted that the three-judge panel felt that Metro Nashville would fail in a claim that the reduction overall was unconstitutional, just the quick enactment of the law.

“Clarity about the law is important, both now and in the years to come,” Skrmetti said, “While the Court did enjoin the short-term, transitional provisions of the new law in Davidson County, the result of this litigation to date is that the cap on the size of metropolitan councils has been delayed but not been defeated.”

It is unclear if Metro Nashville will appeal the ruling as it applies to the future.

The council reduction bill passed the Legislature on March 9 and was signed by Gov. Bill Lee immediately that day.

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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter at The Center Square who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies.