[1][2] In 1932, Joe Carr was one of the founding members of the Young Democratic Clubs of Tennessee, serving as the organization's first secretary.
In 1940, he was manager for the re-election campaigns of the "Coalition Ticket," three Democratic candidates backed by Memphis political boss Edward Crump: Governor Prentice Cooper, U.S.
[1] His service to the party having earned him Crump's support, on January 8, 1941, the Tennessee General Assembly elected Carr to the position of Secretary of State by a unanimous vote.
[1] After losing his position in state government, Carr embarked on a short career in the private sector, establishing an insurance business in Nashville.
[1] As secretary of state, and thus the official responsible for conducting elections in the state, Joe Carr was the nominal defendant in the famous 1962 U.S. Supreme Court case Baker v. Carr, in which the Supreme Court held that Congressional and legislative districts had to be of substantially equal populations in order to comply with the "equal protection" provision of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (the so-called "one man one vote" decision).
Carr's name on the case as defendant was merely ex officio; the General Assembly, not the secretary of state, was responsible for setting the district boundaries.
[1] After Carr's retirement, a bronze bust of him was placed in the Tennessee State Capitol at the direction of the General Assembly and Governor Ray Blanton.