The riveting drama of the presidential election aside, area Tennessee voters had good reason last night to pay attention to the outcome of local and state legislative elections. Three contested state House seats and the 10th state Senate District seat here were at stake. And so was the lamentable likelihood of Republicans gaining a super-majority in both legislative chambers in Nashville, though nothing could be worse for reasoned lawmaking.
As it turned out, there were no surprises here. Todd Gardenhire won the only serious legislative contest, taking the 10th state Senate District by a margin of more than 5,000 votes over Chattanooga City Councilman Andrea McGary, according to Associated Press reports for 98 percent of precincts. Gardenhire, an investment broker and veteran GOP insider, had been seen as the likely winner of the seat being vacated by Democrat Andy Berke, since it had been given a Republican tilt in the decennial redistricting.
Gardenhire’s victory helped Senate Republicans achieve 22 seats they needed to claim a supermajority in the 33-member Senate. That status, for either chamber, gives the super-majority an automatic quorum and the power to suspend rules and cut off debate on any measure. Democrats now will have virtually no leverage in the Senate, nor in the House if final tallies support predictions for a supermajority there, as well.
In House districts 27, 28 and 30, incumbents Richard Floyd (Republican), JoAnne Favors (Democrat) and Vince Dean (Republican), respectively, won handily.
Frank Eaton, Floyd’s opponent, and Sandy Norris Smith, Dean’s challenger, both Democrats and political newcomers, showed more poise and intelligence and offered more sensible and forward-looking agendas. The 2-to-1 vote margins that defeated them, however, suggest the deep partisan intransigence of their districts. It’s hard for any Democrat or independent to make progress in such districts when fixed ideologies held by the far right over social wedge issues outweigh the core issues of education, tax fairness and health care that drive the general welfare of Tennesseans broadly.