NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Democratic lawmakers in the Tennessee House of Representatives sent a letter to leadership on Friday asking for fairer partisan representation on the House's committees.
The letter was signed by Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D - Nashville) and Rep. Karen Camper (D - Memphis). It asks Speaker Cameron Sexton (R - Crossville) to add Democratic lawmakers to some committees, in order to better reflect the partisan makeup of the House.
This year, the House includes 75 Republicans and 24 Democrats, or around 24.2% of Democrats. The letter also cites Rule 6 of the House's Permanent Rules of Order requiring the Speaker to give consideration to the representation in the House when assigning members to committees.
It said Democratic lawmakers are underrepresented on six standing committees, but they are primarily concerned about the Education Administration Committee. Democratic lawmakers have three of 19 seats in that committee or around 15.8%. There is also one Democrat out of nine seats on the K-12 Subcommittee, or around 11.1%.
Education is bound to be a main focus of lawmakers during this year's legislative session. Leading up to its start, Governor Bill Lee proposed expanding the state's education voucher program universally. The proposal effectively calls for allocating public funds to be used by families to cover some of the costs associated with students' private education.
The public funds could be used to pay for faith-based schools and private schools, among others. Critics of the proposals said the voucher program takes money away from public schools to instead be spent on private education. The Tennessee Department of Education also presented on the state's existing voucher program, currently only available in Davidson County and Shelby County.
In the presentation, leaders said students participating in the voucher program tend to underperform compared to traditional public school students.
The House and Senate may also disagree on whether to refuse around $1.2 billion in federal education funding, after passing anti-LGBTQ+ laws that may conflict with federal requirements.
"Additionally, Democrats are significantly underrepresented on the civil justice subcommittee (11.1%), banking and consumer affairs subcommittee, all three of the local government subcommittees (12.5% each), as well as two of the three state government subcommittees (14.3% each). Several of these subcommittees only have one Democratic member," the letter said.
The letter also said while no member can be appointed to more than three standing committees at a time, there are three Democratic lawmakers only appointed to two standing committees.
The letter's specific requests to ensure fairer representation are listed below.
- The appointment of at least one additional Democrat to the Education Administration Committee who could also serve on the K-12 subcommittee
- The appointment of at least one additional Democrat to the Civil Justice Committee who could also serve on the civil justice subcommittee
- The appointment of at least one additional Democrat to the Local Government Committee who could also serve on at least one or more of its subcommittees
- The appointment of any current member of a standing committee to any remaining subcommittee that only has one Democratic member
"We believe these requests to be fair, and they would bring our House closer to full compliance with Rule 6 by better ensuring proportional representation among our respective political parties," the letter said.
Speaker Sexton's office released a statement about the letter Friday evening. The statement is available below.
“In this session as always, the speaker has considered a wide range of factors in making committee assignments, including political party representation in the House. He appreciates the minority leader and caucus chair’s letter.”