Talk:List of governors of Tennessee

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In the Tennessee Blue Book, John P. Buchanan's party is given as "Farm-Labor", not Democratic. He was apparently head of the "Farmer's Alliance" and elected as a 3rd party candidate. 207.69.140.21 19:01, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Fixed. Danthemankhan 04:21, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Blount's occupation

Was the military really William Blount's profession? He served during the Revolution, but for most of his active life he was a land speculator. Bms4880 (talk) 23:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Numbering of Governors

Would anybody be able to include the numbers? GoodDay (talk) 16:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Why? The state doesn't number them in the Tennessee Blue Book at http://state.tn.us/sos/bluebook/05-06/42-past_govs.pdf . --Orlady (talk) 19:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I've tried all kinds of combinations to bring the total up to 49 & have failed. The problem has to be inconsistancy with the Governors who've served non-consecutive terms. Some must've been counted multiple times, while others weren't. GoodDay (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

That is my torment with the Virginia list - their official numbering doesn't jibe in any way with the list of governors. It's why I've pretty much abandoned that one for now. --Golbez (talk) 20:51, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

If you don't count Edward H. East, and if you don't count non-consecutive 2nd terms (Sevier, Carroll, Johnson, RTaylor, Browning, Clement, Ellington), you get 49th for Haslam. I'll need to go back and re-do some infoboxes if non-consecutive 2nd terms aren't counted. Curiously, the Blue Book counts Robert Caruthers, the Confederate successor to Isham Harris, even though he never took office. Bms4880 (talk) 18:48, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I emailed the Tennessee State Library, and they agreed that Blount and Caruthers are not being counted, and second nonconsecutive terms are not being counted, thus making Haslam the 49th governor. I'll modify the infoboxes to reflect this. Bms4880 (talk) 14:04, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Have there been any published reliable sources listing actual numbers and accounting for non-consecutive terms? At present the number for everything over 2 appears dubious. The bluebook link given earlier doesn't appear to provide numbers for them. Might be best to dispense with numbers altogether for TN unless there is an actual published and accepted definition...rather than what look like doubtful numbering schemes. If numbers are given that are clearly out of line with commonly accepted practice, then a note and reference should be given for each one explaining the scheme. The discrepancy is painfully obvious when comparing to Texas (Sam Houston, gov. of both TN and TX) and the U.S. where non-consecutives are numbered. Red Harvest (talk) 07:40, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

The Tennessee Blue Book, which is published by Tennessee's Secetary of State, and dozens of other publications refer to Haslam as the 49th e.g., Bredesen as the 48th, and Sundquist as the 47th. It took some digging, but I found references in older Blue Book versions to Clement as the 41st and Andrew Johnson as the 15th. It's confusing how they do it, but it does appear to be consistent over the years.

The official list isn't numbered, but if you remove Blount (territorial governor) and Caruthers (never took office), it comes to 49. Bms4881 (talk) 15:31, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that it doesn't appear to be a reliable, official method. Instead it has the look of relatively recent sloppy accounting in the TN SOS office or effort to patch prior errors (perhaps by predecessors) that has not been properly examined/challenged. The first Blount would not qualify anyway since he was a territorial governor. Those that never took office similarly would not make the list. The Blue book link does not explain methodology and does not provide numbers for the table listing. It really doesn't appear that TN has any consistent method for this. The current sentence in the article appears to be synthesis: "All governors are counted only once, regardless of number of terms served (e.g., John Sevier is considered the 1st governor, rather than the 1st and 3rd governor)." I'm not seeing that in the Blue book reference given. It says he was the 1st, but makes no comment on whether or not he was also the 3rd. Numbers being assigned in later years look more like a listing of how many governors there have been rather than an actual numbering of governors, and as those of us commenting know, it makes a difference.

This is frustrating because there doesn't appear to be a "right answer" at present. It doesn't really matter which answer is "correct", but we do need a good analysis of this from a reliable source or sources before choosing. We can't do original research or synthesis to determine it, which seems to be the corner that we are presently in. There are a couple of questions that are needed to resolve this: Has TN historically numbered the terms? If they did, what was the original numbering scheme? Has it changed? Did they really intend for it to be different than what appears to be the standard in the U.S.?

At present any numbering of terms for TN governor is dubious, because they don't appear to have an official publicized method for doing it. Instead, it has the appearance of trying to explain discrepancies in recent numbers for a few governors. Red Harvest (talk) 20:33, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

John P. Buchanan

Does the Blue Book list Buchanan as a Democrat or "Farm-Labor"? Bms4880 (talk) 16:11, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Formatting of Other High Offices Held

I'm fairly confident that it is only by some error I have been unable to locate or remedy that the table for governors who went on to other offices is formatted to lie to the right of the list of governors -- there is some overlap whereby, e.g., Lamar Alexander's service is at the same height of each table, but not enough for me to think it intentional -- but I don't know how to fix it and can imagine, anyway, that I'm mistaken. Anyone care to have a crack at either fixing or explaining the setup?Czrisher (talk) 19:38, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Bizarre. I tried adding a section header for Other high offices held. The TOC recognizes this heading, but it doesn't appear in the article body. I'm guessing that would fix the problem. As far as I can tell, the formatting is the same as List of Governors of Mississippi, so I don't see how the heading shows up on that list but not this one. Bms4880 (talk) 21:36, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

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Possibly Swapping Occupation for Prior Offices?

I figure the occupation aspect was more applicable to 19th century governors, but I wonder if a better use of the occupation space would be an area for prior offices. For example, with his twelve years in Congress, Governor Sundquist has a substantially different background from Governor Lee. However, Sundquist and Lee are both simply listed as "businessman".

I'd also like to further note that Lamar Alexander has "US Senator" listed under "occupation" although he was not a Senator for more than a decade after his term as governor. In either case, I find the "occupation" column strange and inconsistent.Lrd31e (talk) 16:25, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

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