A member of the Senate State and Local Government Committee is an attorney with a law firm that could benefit from the passage of the legislation enabling Randy Boyd’s taxpayer-funded baseball stadium in Knoxville.
Democrat Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville sits on the Senate State and Local Government Committee, the first stop for SB 0783.
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Gov. Bill Lee is moving forward on his campaign pledge of school choice in the form of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) available in 2020, although only about one-half of one percent of the state’s students would qualify to participate in the program’s first year. The governor delivered his first State of the State address Monday, as reported by The Tennessee Star. Lee said: I know there’s concern that programs like this will take money away from public schools, but my ESA plan will invest at least $25 million new dollars in public schools in the first year to fill the gap when a student transfers to another school. The Tennessee Department of Education referred a request for more information to the governor’s office. Lee spokesperson Laine Arnold did not reply to requests for comment. The proposal would only be provided to five county school districts: Davidson, Hamilton, Knox, Shelby and Madison (including the city of Jackson). Also included would be the state’s Achievement School District of failing schools, the Chattanooga Times Free Press said. Only 5,000 students in fall 2020 would be eligible, or only about one-half of one percent of the state’s 975,000 students. Qualifying students would be eligible for…
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U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said he believes that the Supreme Court will not find Obamacare to be unconstitutional – but even if it did, the federal government can swoop in and provide protections for people with pre-existing health conditions. Tennessee’s senior senator made the remark Saturday following the historic court ruling effectively declaring Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act (ACA), dead. Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court Northern District of Texas on Friday night ruled the ACA unconstitutional based on the individual mandate that requires people to have insurance and how that affects a new tax law that sets the penalty for no coverage to $0. Alexander issued a statement on Twitter that said: “If the U.S. Supreme Court eventually were to agree that Obamacare is unconstitutional — which seems unlikely, however poorly the law was written — I am confident that any new federal law replacing it will continue to protect Americans with pre-existing conditions who buy health insurance.” My statement on the ruling in Texas v. Azar. pic.twitter.com/NrFtFRK9tH — Sen. Lamar Alexander (@SenAlexander) December 15, 2018 The Supreme Court in 2012 said the ACA was constitutional in a 5-4 vote in a case titled NFIB v.…
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Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam is advocating for the removal of a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Capitol in Nashville. “My position on this issue has not changed – I do not believe Nathan Bedford Forrest should be one of the individuals we honor at the Capitol. The General Assembly has established a process for addressing these matters and I strongly encourage the Capitol Commission and the Historical Commission to act,” Haslam said in a statement issued Monday. A Tennessee native, Forrest was a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Also a slave trader, Forrest was known for his brutality. According to some accounts, he became a Christian later in life and distanced himself from the KKK, which he helped start. Activists in many states are calling for the removal of Confederate monuments after violent clashes between white supremacists and leftist radicals on Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia. Dozens of protesters gathered at the Capitol Monday to demand that the bust come down, according to Nashville Public Radio. The bust was installed in the 1970s and ever since there have been calls periodically to remove it, the last time being after the Charleston church shooting in…
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Gov. Bill Haslam has signed a law requiring cities to spend more on security or allow people to carry handguns at parks, fairs, auditoriums and other public venues. Nashville Mayor Megan Barry had asked Haslam to veto the bill. The city of Knoxville was also opposed, as were gun control advocates, including the Safe Tennessee Project and Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America. The National Rifle Association supports the measure. According to a May 12 press release, the Tennessee Firearms Association said of the law signed by Gov. Haslam that it “could have been a good bill but that may have been intentionally amended to make the situation worse for gun owners. This bill significantly changes Tennessee law for the worse and we suspect most legislators who voted on it were not even aware of the problem in the bill.” The law provides lawful gun owners with a private cause of action to challenge local gun control policies that run counter to state law. The new Tennessee law “leaves to local governments the ultimate decision of whether to prohibit firearms in local government buildings, and the new provisions in this bill give local governments and their permittees more…
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Mayor Megan Barry praised Nashville’s Muslim community and spoke about the “gift of globalism” in her speech Saturday at the Islamic Center of Tennessee in Antioch. Barry made her comments at a luncheon to celebrate the third annual Standing up for Justice and Muslim Community Day. The event was sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council. A progressive Democrat, Barry has faced criticism from conservatives who portray her embrace of immigration as a heedless one that doesn’t seriously examine the challenges posed by linguistic, cultural and religious diversity. Barry issued a proclamation Saturday honoring Muslims in which she calls them “an increasingly important thread in the tapestry of America” and calls their presence in Middle Tennessee “historic” even though their presence did not become notable until recent years. In her speech, Barry said promoting diversity has been a critical issue for her since taking office. Nashville is home today for many newcomers from all over the world. Barry noted the 120 languages spoken by families whose children attend Metro Nashville Public Schools. “What a gift to have a multilingual community,” she said. “We need to make sure that the folks who are speaking their first language continue to speak that…
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