Democrat Tennessee lawmakers Wednesday stopped in Chattanooga on their gun control bus tour, which began two weeks ago and will end in Nashville on August 21, the day the special session of the General Assembly, focused on gun control, will begin.
The tour has been led by State Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-District 55), and has been supported by likely U.S. Senate candidate and current State Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-District 90), who appeared at Wednesday’s event.
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Tennessee’s Democrat elected officials will embark upon a statewide bus tour to discuss gun violence, which will end at the state capitol on the first day of the August special session on gun control.
“I’m here to announce a statewide effort that we are spearheading,” said Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville), the Democrat caucus chair in a Monday morning press conference. “You know, too often we state legislators spend a great deal of time up here in the state capitol spinning our wheels about important issues. But today I’m announcing that my colleagues and I are putting some wheels on the road and heading out across the state to personally hear from and speak with Tennessee families on this important matter.”
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Two Democratic lawmakers are making a push for transparency on how much businesses pay in tax to the state of Tennessee.
Senate Bill 1009 would require tax bills paid by businesses to be public information. The bill sponsors say hiding the bills paid, or not, by large corporations make it difficult to know the impact of tax policy in the state.
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WSMV polled the four major Nashville mayoral candidates on whether the Metro Nashville Public Schools superintendent should report to the mayor instead of the school board, and only one said “Yes.” That candidate was Dr. Carol Swain. WSMV’s story is here. The Metro Nashville mayoral candidates who were polled were Swain, incumbent Mayor David Briley, State Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-TN-55) and at-large Metro Council member John Cooper. Swain told WSMV, “I believe the director of schools should report to the mayor because there has to be some accountability. We’ve had problems in the past. The school board has a budget of almost a billion dollars and we know that we have some of the worst performing schools in the state.” Briley, Clemmons and Cooper said “No.” One education expert told The Tennessee Star that requiring a superintendent to report to an authority other than a school board would be unprecedented. JC Bowman, executive director of the Professional Educators of Tennessee, said, “That structure does not exist in Tennessee. Mayors in urban areas around the nation have closely aligned economic development with K-12 education. However, we have elected school boards to exercise oversight in the state of Tennessee of public schools.”…
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A group of about 50 people gathered outside the Tennessee Capitol Tuesday to protest Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Savings Account (ESA) plan. The 50 teachers, parents and other advocates voiced concerns about Lee’s support of education savings accounts, WBBJ said. Many of the teachers wore sunglasses “to show that they feared retribution if identified in the small crowd,” the station said. This small protest came days after 200 gathered at a GOP event in Knoxville, where Lee attended, the station said. An organization identifying itself as Tennessee Strong sent the press an email Tuesday morning announcing the rally. The group said one participant was State Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-TN-55), a candidate for mayor of Metro Nashville. The email said: Please join parents, teachers, clergy leaders, public representatives, including state rep John Ray Clemmons, and Tennessee Strong, a grassroots statewide coalition of parents as we announce a statewide call to action in response to Gov Lee’s proposal for vouchers, which ultimately divests public education funds from already vulnerable populations. Please join us at Beth Harwell Plaza in Nashville, TN, TODAY at noon to learn more about the potential impact of vouchers on Tennessee education as well as the call to action. It is super important for…
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Metro At-Large Councilman John Cooper will not run against Nashville Mayor David Briley in August and may not seek re-election to the council, he said Thursday. According to the Nashville Scene, Cooper said it is good to have a rotation of leaders in government. State Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-TN-55) is the only candidate running against Briley. According to the Scene: “Rotation of personnel in citizen government is a good thing,” Cooper told the Post. “Having a bench of personnel who have gone through this learning experience is also super for a community.” To that point, two new names have recently appointed treasurers to run for one of five at-large seats on the Metro Council: former state Rep. Gary Moore and Zulfat Suara, a controller at Meharry Medical College and chair of the American Muslin Advisory Council. Constitutional lawyer and civil libertarian Daniel A. Horwitz tweeted, “I’m very sad about this news. However, it makes going all in for @JRClemmons easy as can be. Everyone should be grateful for @JCooper4Council’s service on the Council and his contribution to an otherwise insane and clueless body.” I’m very sad about this news. However, it makes going all in for @JRClemmons easy as…
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Two leading Democrats in the Tennessee General Assembly support the main element of Gov. Haslam’s plan to fund road construction by increasing the state tax on gasoline. For State Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) and State Sen. Sara Kyle (D-Memphis), however, it’s a matter of degree. While Gov. Haslam wants to increase the tax on gas by 7 cents per gallon, these Democrats want to increase it by 5 cents per gallon. As for the diesel tax, Democrats would increase it 9 cents per gallon, 3 fewer than the 12 cents per gallon increase Gov. Haslam has proposed. The Democrat gas tax proposal has a great deal in common with Gov. Haslam’s proposal, and very little in common with the Republican alternative to Haslam’s plan. That alternative, known as the Hawk Plan, would fund road construction by reallocation 0.25 percent of the sales tax, while not raising gas taxes. Like Gov. Haslam’s proposal, the Democrats want gas taxes to increase automatically every year. While Haslam simply proposes indexing the annual increase to the rate of inflation, Clemmons and Kyle want a more complex indexing formula, based on: (1) The state’s population growth rate, multiplied by seventy-five percent (75%); and…
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