Tennessee Law And Government

Tennessee's governor holds office for a four year term and may serve a maximum of two terms. The governor is the only official who is elected statewide, making him one of the more powerful chief executives in the nation. The state does not elect the lieutenant-governor directly, contrary to most other states; the Tennessee Senate elects its Speaker who serves as lieutenant governor.

The Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature, consists of the 33-member Senate and the 99-member House of Representatives. Senators serve four year terms, and House members serve two year terms. Each chamber chooses its own speaker. The speaker of the state Senate also holds the title of lieutenant-governor. Most executive officials are elected by the legislature.

The highest court in Tennessee is the state Supreme Court. It has a chief justice and four associate justices. No more than two justices can be from the same Grand Division. The Court of Appeals has 12 judges. The Court of Criminal Appeals has nine judges.

Tennessee's current state constitution was adopted in 1870. The state had two earlier constitutions. The first was adopted in 1796, the year Tennessee joined the union, and the second was adopted in 1834. The Tennessee Constitution outlaws martial law within its jurisdiction. This may be a result of the experience of Tennessee residents and other Southerners during the period of military control by Union (Northern) forces of the U.S. government after the American Civil War.

Tennessee politics, like that of most U.S. States, is dominated by the Democratic and Republican Parties. Like practically all Southern states, Tennessee tends to be politically conservative and currently tilts towards the Republican Party. However, it has often prided itself on its more moderate attitudes about matters of economics and race than some states of the Deep South.

While the Republicans control slightly more than half of the state, Democrats have strong support in the cities of Memphis and Nashville (the only two cities with sizable numbers of liberal Euro-American voters) and in parts of Middle Tennessee (although declining, due to the growth of suburban Nashville) and West Tennessee north of Memphis, where a large rural African-American population resides. The Republicans historically had their greatest strength in East Tennessee, one of the few areas of the South with a Republican voting history that predates the 1960s. Such voting habits were a legacy from the region's support for the Union during the Civil War; much of East Tennessee has not elected a Democrat to Congress since then. In contrast, the Democrats generally dominated politics in the rest of the state until the 1960s; the GOP was essentially a sectional party. In the decades following the Civil Rights Movement and a concomitant revlusion against cultural liberalism, the Republicans have gained strength in the conservative suburbs of Memphis and Nashville and increasing support among rural voters elsewhere in West and Middle Tennessee (especially the former Grand Division). These patterns are largely in keeping with the South generally and do not generally reflect local idiosyncracies.

In the 2000 Presidential Election, the majority of Tennessee voters voted for Republican George W. Bush rather than Vice President Al Gore, a former U.S. Senator from Tennessee. Tennessee support for Bush increased in 2004, with his margin of victory in the state increasing from 4% in 2000 to 14% in 2004. This occurred quite possibly because the nominee, John Kerry, was a Northerner; Southern nominees (e.g., Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton) usually fare better for the Democrats in Tennessee, especially among split-ticket voters outside the metropolitan areas.

Tennessee sends nine members to the US House of Representatives, currently consisting of five Democrats and four Republicans. The Baker v. Carr decision of the US Supreme Court (1962), which established the principle of one man, one vote was based on a lawsuit over rural-biased malapportionment in the Tennessee legislature. The ruling led to an increased prominence in state politics by urban and, eventually, suburban, legislators and statewide officeholders.

The State of Tennessee maintains two dedicated law enforcement entities, the Tennessee Highway Patrol and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, as well as the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee State Parks department.

The Highway Patrol is the primary law enforcement entity that concentrates on highway safety regulations and general non-game state law enforcement and is under the jurisdiction of the Tennessee Department of Safety. The TWRA is an independent agency tasked with enforcing all wild game and fisheries regulations outside of state parks. The TBI maintains state of the art investigative facilities and is the primary state-level criminal investigative department. Tennessee State Park Rangers are responsible for all activities and law enforcement inside the Tennessee State Parks system.

Welcome sign entering Memphis, Tennessee on the Hernando De Soto Bridge over the Mississippi River leaving from Arkansas.