NASHVILLE — January in Nashville ushers in two forces for chaos: erratic weather and irrational legislators. Both are hugely disruptive. Neither is surprising anymore.
But even erratic weather, sometimes careening between thunderstorms and snow in a single day, is easier to cope with than the GOP. Unlike human beings, weather isn’t supposed to be rational.
Neither, it seems, are Republicans, at least not anymore, and a blue city that serves as the capital of a red state had better brace itself when the legislature arrives in town.
Last year, when Nashville’s Metro Council voted not to support the state’s bid for the city to host the 2024 Republican National Convention, retaliation was widely understood to be inevitable, according to Nashville’s NPR affiliate, WPLN News.
Now we know what shape retaliation will take: Last week, on the first day of the new legislative session, Republicans in the Tennessee House and Senate introduced legislation that would cut our Metro Council in half. If passed, the law would overturn not only a 60-year history but also the will of the Nashville people, who voted in 2015 to keep their 40-member council intact.