Tennessee House of Representatives

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The Tennessee House of Representatives, is the lower house of the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee, formally called the Tennessee General Assembly.

According to the state constitution of 1870, this body is to be comprised of 99 members elected for two-year terms. In every even-numbered year, elections for state representative are conducted simultaneously with the elections for U.S. Representative and other offices; the primary election being held on the first Thursday in August. Seats which become vacant through death or resignation are filled by the county commission (or metropolitan county council) of the home county of the member vacating the seat; if more than a year remains in the term a special election is held for the balance of the term.

Members are elected from single-member districts. The districts are traditionally numbered consecutively from east to west and north to south across the state; however, in recent redistricting this convention has not always been strictly adhered to, despite a constitutional provision requiring districts to be numbered consecutively.

Districts are required to be reapportioned every ten years following the federal census in order to be of substantially equal population. However, from 1902 until 1962, the General Assembly ignored this provision. It was estimated that by that point that some districts in the Memphis area had approximately ten times the population of some in rural areas. In 1962 this issue was taken to court. Despite U.S. courts having traditionally declined to rule on such issues, the US Supreme Court opted to hear this case and ruled that the legislature had to comply with the state constitution, as its failure to do so was in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (see Baker v. Carr). Subsequent litigation has further refined the rules regarding this; in the late 1990s a majority-black district in rural West Tennessee was required to be created. As of 2006, the House consists of 53 Democrats and 46 Republicans.

The 1960s redistricting was credited by some observers with creating the first Republican majority in the Tennessee House since Reconstruction in 1968; this situation lasted only until the next election in 1970. 1970 also marked the first election of a Republican governor in a half century and saw both houses of the legislature begin to assert themselves as a counterbalance to executive authority; prior to this time legislators had not had their own staffs or even their own offices and were largely at the mercy of what the governor's staff chose to tell them and in many ways were often something of a "rubber stamp."

The Speaker of the House is second in line to succession to the governorship after the Speaker of the Senate; this has never occurred. Since 1973, all Speakers have been from a single Democratic faction in West Tennessee; this has become a source of some resentment. The Speaker, under House rules, has the right to appoint all committees and their chairs and assign proposed legislation to committees, giving the Speaker tremendous power to push legislation through or conversely, to block it. The current Speaker, James Naifeh, has long been a target of concerted Republican efforts to unseat him. Recent high-profile and well-funded efforts to defeat him at the polls in his own district have failed thus far; future efforts may center around their allying with dissident Democrats who do not have a good relationship with Naifeh in an effort to replace him with another, less partisan, Democrat.

[edit] Make-up of Tennessee House of Representatives, 104th General Assembly (2005-2006)

Affiliation		Members
	Democratic Party	54
	Republican Party	45
Total		99
Government Majority		9

Officers

• Speaker of the House of Representatives: James O. "Jimmy" Naifeh
• Speaker Pro Tempore: Lois DeBerry
• Deputy Speaker: Larry Turner

Majority Leader: Kim McMillan Assistant Majority Leader: Mark L. Maddox Majority Floor Leader: Rob Briley Majority Caucus Chairman: Randy Rinks Majority Caucus Vice Chairman: Joe E. Armstrong Majority Caucus Secretary: Larry Turner Majority Caucus Treasurer: Sherry Jones Majority Whip: Dennis Ferguson

Minority Leader: Bill Dunn Minority Caucus Chairman: Charles Michael Sargent Minority Caucus Vice-Chairman: Joe McCord Assistant Minority Leader: Jason Mumpower Minority Floor Leader: Paul Stanley Minority Caucus Secretary: Dolores Gresham Minority Caucus Treasurer: Joey Hensley Minority Whip: Glen Casada

District	Name	Party
1st	Steve Godsey	Rep
2nd	Nathan Vaughn	Dem
3rd	Jason Mumpower	Rep
4th	Jerome Cochran	Rep
5th	David Hawk	Rep
6th	David Davis	Rep
7th	Matthew Hill	Rep
8th	Joe McCord	Rep
9th	Michael Harrison	Rep
10th	John Litz	Dem
11th	Eddie Yokley	Dem
12th	Richard Montgomery	Rep
13th	Harry J. Tindell	Dem
14th	Park M. Strader	Rep
15th	Joe E. Armstrong	Dem
16th	Bill Dunn	Rep
17th	Frank S. Niceley	Rep
18th	Stacey Campfield	Rep
19th	Harry Brooks	Rep
20th	Doug Overbey	Rep
21st	Russell Johnson	Dem
22nd	Eric Watson	Rep
23rd	Bob McKee	Rep
24th	Dewayne Bunch	Rep
25th	Eric H. Swafford	Rep
26th	Gerald McCormick	Rep
27th	Chris Clem	Rep
28th	Tommie F. Brown	Dem
29th	Joanne Favors	Dem
30th	Jack Sharp	Rep
31st	Bo Watson	Rep
32nd	Dennis Ferguson	Dem
33rd	Jim Hackworth	Dem
34th	Donna Rowland	Rep
35th	Dennis E. Roach	Rep
36th	William Baird	Rep
37th	Bill W. Harmon	Dem
38th	Les Winningham	Dem
39th	George W. Fraley	Dem
40th	Frank Buck	Dem
41st	John Mark Windle	Dem
42nd	Jere L. Hargrove	Dem
43rd	Charles Curtiss	Dem
44th	Michael Ray McDonald	Dem
45th	Debra Young Maggart	Rep
46th	Stratton Bone	Dem
47th	Judd Matheny	Rep
48th	John Hood	Dem
49th	Kent Coleman	Dem
50th	Gary W. Moore	Dem
51st	Mike Turner	Dem
52nd	Rob Briley	Dem
53rd	Janis Baird Sontany	Dem
54th	Edith Taylor Langster	Dem
55th	Gary Odom	Dem
56th	Beth Halteman Harwell	Rep
57th	Susan M. Lynn	Rep
58th	Mary Pruitt	Dem
59th	Sherry Jones	Dem
60th	Ben West, Jr.	Dem
61st	Charles Michael Sargent	Rep
62nd	Curt Cobb	Dem
63rd	Glen Casada	Rep
64th	Tom DuBois	Rep
65th	Joe F. Fowlkes	Dem
66th	Eugene E. Davidson	Dem
67th	Kim McMillan	Dem
68th	Curtis G. Johnson	Rep
69th	David Shepard	Dem
70th	Joey Hensley	Rep
71st	Randy Rinks	Dem
72nd	Steve McDaniel	Rep
73rd	Jimmy A. Eldridge	Rep
74th	John C. Tidwell	Dem
75th	Willie Butch Borchert	Dem
76th	Mark L. Maddox	Dem
77th	Phillip Pinion	Dem
78th	Phillip Johnson	Rep
79th	Chris Crider	Rep
80th	Johnny Shaw	Dem
81st	Jimmy Naifeh	Dem
82nd	Craig Fitzhugh	Dem
83rd	Brian K. Kelsey	Rep
84th	Joe Towns, Jr.	Dem
85th	Larry Turner	Dem
86th	Barbara Cooper	Dem
87th	Gary Rowe	Dem
88th	Larry J. Miller	Dem
89th	Beverly Marrero	Dem
90th	John J. Deberry, Jr.	Dem
91st	Lois M. DeBerry	Dem
92nd	Henri E. Brooks	Dem
93rd	Mike Kernell	Dem
94th	Dolores Gresham	Rep
95th	Curry Todd	Rep
96th	Paul Stanley	Rep
97th	Tre Hargett	Rep
98th	Ulysses Jones, Jr.	Dem
99th	W. C. Pleasant	Rep

[edit] External links

• Official website

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