Some new faces, but number of lawyer lawmakers down

While the Tennessee congressional delegation will include a new lawyer and the state General Assembly will pick up a new lawyer in the House and two in the Senate, neither legislative body will see a net gain of Tennessee lawyer lawmakers after yesterday’s election. In the General Assembly, the total will fall from 27 to 20 of the 132 total members.

The one new lawyer in Congress from Tennessee will be Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis). His election will balance out the loss of Rep. Bill Jenkins, who retired from his first district seat. Cohen, who will have to resign from his state Senate seat in the middle of his term to go to Washington, replaces Rep. Harold Ford Jr. who gave up his seat to run for the U.S. Senate.

In the state Senate, the two new lawyers will be Sen. Lowe Finney (D-Jackson) and Sen. Dwayne Bunch (R-Cleveland). Finney beat Don McLeary, who had switched parties to become a Republican last year. Bunch is not new to the legislature having served in the House for the past eight years. The retirements of Sen. David Fowler (R-Signal Mountain); Sen. Jeff Miller (R-Cleveland), whose seat Bunch took; Sen. Curtis Person (R-Memphis), who is now the Shelby County Juvenile judge; and the pending resignation of Cohen means that the number of lawyers in the upper house will drop from 13 to 11.

The impact of retirements, decisions to seek other office or defeats was even greater in the House, where the total number of lawyer lawmakers fell from 14 to 9. The only new lawyer in the House will be Cookeville attorney Henry Fincher. Fincher replaces retiring Rep. Jere Hargrove (D–Cookeville). Lawyer lawmakers not returning to the House include Bunch, Rep. Jerome Cochran (R-Johnson City), Rep. Joe Fowlkes (D-Cornersville), Hargrove, Rep. Russell Johnson (R-Lenoir City) and Rep. Kim McMillan (D-Clarksville). The impact of the loss in lawyer lawmakers is magnified because of the key positions several of them held, such as Rep. McMillan, who was majority leader, and Rep. Hargrove, who was chair of the powerful House Commerce Committee.