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Committee advances bill to preserve acts of municipal judges elected before state court ruling on residency
Summary
House Bill 490 provides that municipal judges who were duly elected or appointed before the Tennessee Supreme Court’s March ruling on residency will remain de facto officers through the end of their terms; committee voted unanimously to advance the bill after municipal attorneys said it would resolve uncertainty for many cities.
Representative Hilton Haynes presented House Bill 4 90, a rewrite prompted by the Tennessee Supreme Court’s March 7 decision in McNabb v. Harrison, which interpreted Article VI, Section 4 to require one year of residency in the municipality prior to election. The sponsor said the bill would prevent disqualification or removal of municipal judges who were elected or appointed prior to the March ruling and who were qualified under the law in effect at the time of their election or appointment.
Mark Litchford, city attorney for East Ridge, testified the measure would provide guidance to municipalities that have sitting judges who were qualified when elected but might be affected by the Supreme Court’s holding. Litchford told the committee the bill would allow those judges to continue serving and preserve the validity of their prior decisions as de facto acts, avoiding backlog in General Sessions courts and protecting municipal case processing.
The subcommittee discussed the scope and effect; Litchford said the bill would affect roughly 20–25 municipalities and implement a prospective application of the court’s residency rule starting with the next regularly scheduled election for affected judgeships.
The committee voted 6–0 to send House Bill 4 90, as amended, to full judiciary.
