With three days until Election Day, voting turnouts far surpassed 2016 records for early voting. Turnout jumped from about 273,000 the first day to nearly 2.3 million in under two weeks.
These numbers represent over half of Tennessee’s registered voters. More ballots are still forthcoming.
The second session of the 111th Tennessee General Assembly wrapped up Wednesday evening after passing the legislation called for in Governor Bill Lee’s proclamation.
Over the course of three legislative days, the state Senate and House passed measures related to COVID-related liability protection, expansion of telemedicine and criminal laws related to protests.
Read the full story
Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – guest host Ben Cunningham welcomed Tennessee State Executive Committeewoman Michelle Foreman to the newsmakers line.
During the first hour, Foreman explained her call for budget cuts to Metro government which would avoid a steep property tax increase. She described several ways that Metro government could frugally cut spending leaving for a gradual tax increase year over year.
Read the full story
NASHVILLE, Tennessee – After three rounds of voting in a four-way contest, Representative Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby) was elected the House Republican Caucus Chair, eventually receiving 40 votes.
Read the full story
In an exclusive interview with The Tennessee Star’s Grassroots Pundit, Laura and Kevin Baigert, on Capitol Hill Wednesday, State Rep. David Hawk (R-Greeneville) explained the details of his increasingly popular Hawk Plan to fund additional road construction by reallocating 0.25 percent of the state’s 7 percent sales tax. “We’ve had substantial over collections over the last two and a half years and looking at a third year in a row where we’re over collecting franchise and excise tax, over collecting sales tax collections. Saying that, there’s more money coming in than we had budgeted. Substantially more,” Hawk noted. Several estimates place the current annual surplus at about $950 million. Hawk explained that the 0.25 percent he wants to allocate comes from the 1 percent of the current 7 percent sales tax that is not specifically dedicated to particular state programs. “I found that the last time the legislature increased the sales tax in Tennessee it went from 6 percent to 7 percent in 2002,” Hawk told the Baigerts. ‘Those dollars [collected with that extra 1 percent added to the sales tax that year] were largely unaffiliated,” Hawk explained. “The 6 percent below had strings attached to them,” he continued. “There…
Read the full story