Tennessee's 1st congressional district
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Tennessee's 1st congressional district | |
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| Population (2000) | 632,143 |
| Median income | $31,228 |
| Ethnic composition | 95.8% White, 2.2% Black, 0.4% Asian, 1.5% Hispanic, 0.2% Native American, 0.0% other |
| Cook PVI | R+14 |
The Tennessee 1st Congressional District is the congressional district of northeast Tennessee, including all of Carter, Cocke, Greene, Hamblen, Hancock, Hawkins, Johnson, Sullivan, Unicoi, and Washington counties and parts of Jefferson County and Sevier County. Cities and towns represented within the district include Bristol, Butler, Elizabethton, Erwin, Greeneville, Johnson City, Jefferson City, Kingsport, Morristown, Mountain City, Roan Mountain, Sevierville.
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was the first U.S. Representative of the district in 1796-97. U.S. Representative David Davis has represented this district since January 2007.
[edit] Political Characteristics
The 1st is a very safe district for the Republican Party, and is one of only two ancestrally Republican districts in the state (the other being the neighboring 2nd district). Republicans (or their antecedents) have held the seat for all but four years since 1859. The district was one of only two districts in Tennessee whose congressmen did not resign when Tennessee seceded from the Union in 1861. George Washington Bridges was elected as a Unionist (the name used by a coalition of Republicans, northern Democrats and anti-Confederate Southern Democrats) to the Thirty-seventh Congress, but he was arrested by Confederate troops while en route to Washington, D.C. and taken back to Tennessee. Bridges was held prisoner for more than a year before he made his escape and went to Washington, D.C., and assumed his duties on February 23, 1863; serving until March 3, 1863.
East Tennesseans, almost from settlement days, developed a strong distaste for politicians from the other grand divisions of the state, who represented large-scale agricultural interests, something the rugged terrain and rocky soil of the Appalachians largely excluded. With a fiercely independent temperament, residents largely developed their own community institutions without substantial interference (or assistance) from the state and the Federal government.
Like the rest of East Tennessee, slavery had never taken root in this area due to its terrain. As a result, the people almost immediately identified with the Republicans after hostilities ceased. This allegiance continues to this day, even though the district shares demographic characteristics with formerly Confederate areas that consistently voted for Democrats for most of the 20th century. To this day, the district's residents are somewhat skeptical of social programs unless they directly benefit.
The district tends to give its congressmen very long tenures in Washington. Four men have held the district's seat for all but four of the last 86 years.
As with nearby areas, a preponderance of residents have strong religious affiliations, especially with recently politically-active churches such as the Southern Baptist Convention and Pentecostal groups. However, social conservatism does not run as deeply here as in the 7th District. Nonetheless, the district is one of the most tenacious supporters of the GOP, behind perhaps only portions of states like Utah and Kansas or suburbs of the Deep South.
[edit] Representatives
From September 3, 1794 to June 1, 1796, the Territory South of the River Ohio (the Southwest Territory) was represented in the United States House of Representatives by a non-voting delegate. On June 1, 1796, the territory was organized into the state of Tennessee.
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