Blue city, red state: Why Nashville and Tennessee aren’t in tune
The view from state Rep. Greg Martin’s fifth-floor office in downtown Nashville looks over the Tennessee Capitol. But right now, staring through the window from a nearby chair, he’s looking for another building.
“I don’t even know where City Hall is,” he says. “I’m sure it’s close.”
It’s out of sight, two blocks away.
Those two blocks might as well be two hundred miles. As Representative Martin and the state government busily debate bills to increase the state’s influence over the city – adding state seats on the airport and sports authority, altering city tax policy – he’s not talking to the city government. He’s never met a member of the council. They’ve never stopped by.
“I’m not going to go seek out Nashville just because the capital happens to be here,” he says. “But if they’ve got something that they want to tell me, I’m willing to listen.”
The disconnect between these two seats of Tennessee political power is striking. Both city and state lawmakers say they want to hear from each other, yet they’re not speaking. Then this April their
