Election District Reapportionments

The general provisions concerning county organization are found in title 5, chapter 1 of Tennessee Code Annotated. Section 5-1-101 enumerates the counties and §5-1-108 deals with the apportionment of the county legislative bodies into a maximum of twenty-five county commissioner districts within each county that is not under a metropolitan government charter. Under T.C.A. §5-1-111, the county legislative bodies must make necessary district boundary changes or completely redistrict a county so that the members represent substantially equal populations based on the most recent federal census at least every ten years. Upon application of any citizen affected, the chancery court of such county has original jurisdiction to review and amend the apportionment or to order an apportionment where none has been made.

Maps and legal descriptions of the boundaries of the county commissioner districts may be found in one of the following offices: County clerk, the county election commission, the state coordinator of elections, secretary of state, and the division of local government, office of the comptroller of the treasury.

Civil districts by that name are no longer used as district boundaries for election of legislative body members. These civil district boundaries have been left undisturbed as they existed prior to the first reapportionment of the quarterly county courts for real property record-keeping purposes only. T.C.A. §5-1-112.

The acts listed below have affected the civil districts in Jefferson County, but are no longer operative regarding elections. Also referenced below are acts which repeal prior law without providing new substantive provisions.

1. Acts of 1835-36, Chapter 1, Page 19, required the Tennessee General Assembly by Resolution to appoint suitable people to lay out the civil districts in each county according to the population of 1833. Each County having 3,000, or more, qualified voters would have 25 civil districts, between 2500 and 3,000 voters, 20 civil districts, dropping off in equal segments down to five civil districts. Two Justices of the Peace and one Constable would be elected in each District except the one containing the county seat which would have three Justices of the Peace and two Constables. The Commissioners were instructed to take advantage of all natural barriers and boundaries in laying out the Districts. John Rosser, Jonathan Woods, Joseph B. M. Reese, Daniel Meek, and Robert McFarland, Jr. were named as the Commissioners in Jefferson County.
2. Private Acts of 1903, Chapter 431, Page 1228, abolished the First, Third, Fourth, Seventh, Ninth, Eleventh, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Nineteenth Civil Districts in Jefferson County and created seven new Civil Districts composed of the old whole civil districts and stipulated that none but the General Assembly could change them in the future.
3. Private Acts of 1905, Chapter 236, Page 508, amended Private Acts of 1903, Chapter 431, above, to make the Third Civil District coincide with the old Twelfth Civil District, to make the Eighth Civil District contain the old Third, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Civil District. The old Thirteenth Civil District was divided by adding the area described in the Act to the Fourth Civil District and leaving the remainder as it was then designated.