Memphis City Council


The Memphis City Council is the legislative branch of government for the city of Memphis, Tennessee. It is made up of 13 members: 7 single-district members and 6 "super district" members. Council members are elected to four-year terms with a two-term limit. The city is governed by Mayor Jim Strickland and the thirteen city council members. Memphis uses a strong-mayor form of government in which the city council acts as a check against the power of the executive branch, the mayor. The council is responsible for approving the city budget, making land use decisions, and approving, amending, or rejecting other legislative proposals.
Memphis City Council committees meet on every first and third Tuesday of every month.
The first city council took office in 1968, after the modern city charter had been approved by Memphis voters in a 1966 referendum. The 1966 charter set the salary for council members at $6,000, which was later raised to $20,100 in 1995, and later raised again to the current amount of $30,100. The 1966 charter provided for run-off elections when no candidate got a majority of the vote, but a federal judge overruled that section of the charter in 1991.
In 1995, the council adopted a new district plan which changed council positions to all districts. This plan provides for nine districts, seven with one representative each and two districts with three representatives each. In 2010, the council approved a new redistricting plan to reflect recent demographic shifts.
By law, Memphis municipal elections are Nonpartisan, in that candidates do not represent a specific political party.

Current Membership

The current Memphis City Council was elected in the November 2019 Memphis elections and was sworn in on January 1, 2020.
DistrictMemberTook Office
1Rhonda Logan2020
2Frank Colvett, Jr.2016
3Patrice Robinson2016
4Jamita Swearengen2020
5Worth Morgan2016
6Edmund Ford, Sr.2020
7Michalyn Easter-Thomas2020
8-1JB Smiley, Jr.2020
8-2Cheyenne Johnson2020
8-3Martavius Jones2016
9-1Chase Carlisle2020
9-2J. Ford Canale2018
9-3Jeff Warren2020