TJ Hardaway, son of late G.A. Hardaway, appointed to father’s TN house seat

Tennessee House District 93 officially has someone in its briefly vacant seat.

Willis Lincoln TJ Hardaway III will hold the seat until the next general election in November. He has not made a decision as to if he will run officially for the seat yet, but will listen to the will of his constituents.

The house seat was formerly held by his father, State Rep. G.A. Hardaway, a Democrat from Memphis. Hardaway died on April 24. His death left the Tennessee House District 93 seat, which encompasses South Memphis and Orange Mound and stretches to Shelby Farms, open.

Hardaway was nominated by acclamation by the board. After he was nominated to the position, he spoke to commissioners and thanked all of them by name. He said he spent the last year spending a lot of time with his father, wanted to get to know him.

“This could not have been better timing. Last year, I spent various moments one on one with my father, for no other reason other than wanting to know more about the man…turns out I already knew the man because I already know myself,” Hardaway said.

He will travel to Nashville the evening of May 6 and be sworn in to office.

The Shelby County Commission moved swiftly to appoint someone to the seat due to the state legislature being called into a special session. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee called a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly to review the state’s congressional map on May 1, with the session beginning on May 5.

The push for redistricting Tennessee’s Congressional districts came from President Donald Trump, after the U.S. Supreme Court rolled back protections of the Voting Rights Act. The General Assembly was gaveled into the special session on May 5, which was also election day for many counties in Tennessee.

A map revealed the morning of May 6 splits the state’s 9th Congressional District and carves up Tennessee’s only majority-Black congressional seat, in Memphis. The new map shows three districts in Memphis, two of which stretch all the way to Williamson County outside Nashville.

Brooke Muckerman is the education and children’s issues and politics reporter for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at brooke.muckerman@commercialappeal.com.