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State Supreme Court hears challenge to law changing Metro Nashville airport board appointments
Summary
Counsel for the state argued a statute altering the Metro Nashville Airport Authority’s appointment rules is a matter of statewide concern and not a forbidden local law; Metro Nashville countered that the act singles out the city and cannot be saved by severing timing provisions. The court probed tests for when the Home Rule Amendment bars state encroachment.
The State Supreme Court heard oral argument over a law that changes how the Metro Nashville Airport Authority’s board is constituted, including adding an eighth seat and altering appointing authorities.
Matt Rice, arguing for the state, told the court the statute contains no June 2025 deadline and that the population trigger “turns on the 2020 federal census or a subsequent federal census,” so the provision applies beyond 2025. He proposed a two-part framework for evaluating whether a statute is “local in form or effect”: first, whether multiple localities could fall within the law’s scope without additional action by the General Assembly; and second, whether the criteria in the law are rationally connected to the substantive rule it imposes. Rice argued that test avoids “a probability based inquiry” and that courts can identify when criteria are a pretext to target a single locality.
Melissa Roberge, representing Metro Nashville, urged the court to adhere to Ferris and related precedent and said the Ferris test already provides a workable line: look at who the statute actually applies to using “reasonable and rational considerations” and do not indulge in theoretical or merely possible applications. Roberge argued the legislature designed the act to apply only to Metro Nashville and said she could not “conceive of a situation where it would apply to another county.” She warned that section 2.1(c), which sets initial terms and staggers appointments, cannot simply be severed without effectively rewriting the statute.
Justices pressed both sides on several practical and textual points: whether the statute’s object is the airport authority (a separate entity) or Metro Nashville itself; whether treating aviation as a matter of statewide concern would swallow the Home Rule Amendment; and whether the court may, consistent with precedent, elide timing provisions to preserve the statute’s constitutionality. Counsel for the state pointed to cases including City of Knoxville v. Dossett, Leach, Ferris and Burson in support of a statewide-concern approach; Metro’s counsel countered that those precedents and the Home Rule Amendment require rejecting targeted laws that single out a particular locality.
Neither side sought immediate relief from the court during argument; the justices will consider the briefs and arguments before issuing an opinion. The court concluded oral argument and called the next case on the docket.
