Districts are required to be reapportioned every ten years following the federal census in order to be of substantially equal population.

Despite U.S. courts having traditionally declined to rule on such issues, the U.S. Supreme Court opted to hear this case and ruled that the legislature had to comply with the state constitution, as its failure to do so was in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (see Baker v. Carr).

Subsequent litigation has further refined the rules regarding this; in the late 1990s a majority-black district in rural West Tennessee was required to be created.

The 1960s redistricting was credited by some observers with creating the first Republican majority in the Tennessee House since Reconstruction in 1968; this situation lasted only until the next election in 1970.

1970 also marked the first election of a Republican governor in a half century and saw both houses of the legislature begin to assert themselves as a counterbalance to executive authority; prior to this time legislators had not had their own staffs or even their own offices and were largely at the mercy of what the governor's staff chose to tell them and in many ways were often something of a "rubber stamp."

The Speaker is elected to a two-year term at the beginning of the 1st half of each session of the Tennessee General Assembly.

Additionally, the Speaker is in charge of all facilities, professional and clerical staff, and custodians and security personnel of the House.

[15] November 2020 saw the election of first openly LGBT people ever to hold seats in Tennessee's state house of representatives,[16] Democrat Torrey Harris and Republican Eddie Mannis.