by Walter Blanks, Jr.
Tennessee has sent a message that local officials across the country would be wise to hear. When city leaders put partisan politics ahead of the people they serve, state officials have every legal right – and increasingly, the political will – to step in and set things right.
Last month, the General Assembly passed legislation giving state leaders greater, and frankly fairer, control over Tennessee’s airports. Going forward, the governor, lieutenant governor, and speaker of the state House will appoint six of the nine members on each major airport authority board. Local officials will still appoint three.
To understand how we got here, you have to go back to 2022. That’s when Nashville’s progressive Metro Council voted down a draft agreement to host the 2024 Republican National Convention. The decision wasn’t about logistics or cost. It was about politics, pure and simple. Council members didn’t want to be associated with Republicans, so they walked away from an event that would have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Nashville’s economy and rippled out to small businesses, restaurants, and hotels across Middle Tennessee.
Local business owners could have used that boost. Instead, a handful of progressive council members decided their partisan leanings mattered more than the livelihoods of the people they were elected to serve.
That single, petty decision opened the door to a broader, overdue conversation in the General Assembly: What other powers had Nashville’s city government been entrusted with that might be better handled at the state level? Control of the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority was an obvious candidate. Even the airport’s own CEO supported shifting control from city to state officials.
Lawmakers passed a version of the airport bill in 2023, but a state court struck it down after city officials argued that it targeted Nashville. So this year, lawmakers came back with a version that applies to airport authorities across Tennessee, and it passed with strong majorities in both chambers.
Nashville’s city officials, to put it bluntly, have reaped what they sowed, and rightfully so.
The General Assembly had every right to do this. Our airports serve all Tennesseans, not just the residents of the cities where the runways happen to sit. Folks from across the state fly out of these airports. So do plenty of travelers from neighboring states. Yet before this law, the state had zero appointments to airport authority boards despite contributing far more funding than the host cities. The new law corrects that imbalance and gives Tennesseans outside our big cities a real voice in how these critical assets are run.
This isn’t just a hard lesson for Nashville’s council members. This should serve as a cautionary tale for local officials in other Tennessee cities, and across the country.
The lesson is simple. If you focus on good governance – on serving your constituents instead of scoring political points – you have nothing to worry about. But if you spend your time in office picking partisan fights at the expense of the people who elected you, don’t be surprised when state officials decide enough is enough and step in to clean up the mess.
Tennessee just proved they can. And they will.
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Walter Blanks Jr serves as the Executive Director of the Legacy Society.
The state needs to take control of the Metro Nashville Public School system. MNPS has consistently low academic scores , near the bottom of Tennessee state standards list. Not to mention Board of Education is led by a colossal dunce, Dr Adrianne Battlers She recently created her own private bathroom at the Board of Education Hq to the tune of approximately 170 taxpayers dollars. Not to mention the 5-6 million dollar settlement the school board had to pay out because of discrimination lawsuit. How much longer do we have to endure this failed corrupt leadership before the state take over ?
Well said.
Lawmakers of Tennessee better take over in Nashville before they kill the Golden goose the overvalued properties especially business where people have tried to get loans on the increased value and the banks are denying them because they say they’re overvalued.