Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti pursued legal action against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on Thursday over its new rule regarding workplace abortion accommodations.
In 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) into law, which protects pregnant workers and their babies by directing that women receive workplace accommodations for “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.”
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Tennessee received a payment totaling $146.1 million on Tuesday from the major tobacco companies that joined the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), bringing the state’s total payout amount from the settlement to $3.9 billion.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee joined a coalition of 24 other governors in issuing a joint statement demanding that the Biden administration lift its pause on new liquified natural gas (LNG) export approvals.
In January, the Biden administration temporarily paused pending decisions on LNG exports to “non-FTA countries until the Department of Energy can update the underlying analyses for authorizations” in the name of “climate change.”
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The Tennessee Senate approved a bill that would put state law on college athletics name, image and likeness rules in line with a lawsuit brought against the National Collegiate Athletic Association by the Tennessee Attorney General.
The bill would change Tennessee law to allow prospective students to hire an agent and would eliminate fair market value limitations on athlete pay.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has joined a coalition of 22 state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in support of Texas’s illegal alien removal law, SB4, being challenged in the case United States v. Texas.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti led a coalition of 23 other state attorneys general in submitting a public comment letter in opposition to a new proposed rule by the Department of Labor.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined a coalition of 25 other state attorneys general in sending a letter to leaders in the U.S. Senate urging the immediate passage of the Laken Riley Act.
Laken Riley, the 22-year-old Georgia nursing student, was allegedly killed at the hands of an illegal Venezuelan immigrant while on a jog near campus.
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Conservative elected officials sometimes accuse California of making policy choices for all Americans by dint of its population size and concomitant regulatory power.
Now they are threatening legal action against a Golden State mini-me for legislation that would purportedly override other states’ laws restricting abortion as well as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and genital surgeries for gender confusion.
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Mark Pulliam, a retired attorney and Misrule of Law blogger, said a series of nullification bills introduced in the Tennessee General Assembly are not constitutional despite seemingly being an “easy fix” to federal overreach.
“A lot of people these days come up with these theories and solutions of problems that sound good, that seem like it’s an easy fix, but they’re just not, at the end of the day, serious, and in some cases not workable, and in some cases not constitutional, and this whole nullification movement…is an example of one of those, I think, shamiracle solutions,” Pulliam explained on Monday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has joined a coalition of 26 other state attorneys general in sending a letter to Meta, the parent company of social media giants Facebook and Instagram, demanding that Instagram stop monetizing child exploitation content.
Citing reporting from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, the coalition of attorneys general expressed concern over news that Instagram has “actively promoted” to “likely pedophiles” content created by “adults seeking to profit from exploiting their own children.”
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We have seen a rise in parents concerned about social media’s impact on our children across Tennessee and America. As a proud parent and the chairman of Latinos for Tennessee, I firmly believe that parents must play a central role in ensuring the safety of our children online. I also firmly believe in states’ rights and that when it comes to enforcing legislation to protect our children, I trust Tennessee’s own Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti much more than the bureaucrat-heavy Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
I have previously written that the well-being of future generations depends on our federal representatives taking appropriate action to protect children by empowering parents. This issue has become even more pressing as children increase their daily screen time. As a leader in the Latino community, I worry because, “Latino adolescents have a higher rate of social media use” and “face greater risks of experiencing adverse mental health outcomes,” according to the Julian Samora Research Institute at Michigan State University.
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A coalition of Republican state attorneys general led by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is fighting a federal agency’s proposal to massively reduce the amount of single-use plastics consumed by the government.
The General Services Administration (GSA) — which provides centralized procurement for the federal government and offers office products and other services to federal agencies — proposed a rule in late December 2023 that would put the federal government on track to significantly reduce its use of single-use plastic packaging in an effort to be environmentally friendly. Skrmetti and 13 other state attorneys general argued in comments filed Monday that the policy exceeds the agency’s authority, and that it would decrease the efficiency of federal procurement and increase costs while failing to do much for the environment.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said his consumer protection lawsuit against BlackRock’s Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) investing will force the company to disclose if it is mixing ESG factors when making investment decisions instead of focusing on financial factors relative to the rate of return.
Skrmetti filed his lawsuit against BlackRock in December 2023, alleging that the hedge fund has misled consumers in Tennessee about the scale and impacts of its ESG initiatives for several years.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti called Friday’s preliminary injunction ruling a “big win” for his and Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares’ lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) illegal name, image, and likeness (NIL)-recruitment ban.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined a 23-state coalition in sending a letter to President Joe Biden and United States Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm regarding the administration’s pause on the export of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the name of climate change.
Last month, the Biden administration announced a temporary pause on pending decisions on exports of LNG to “non-FTA countries until the Department of Energy can update the underlying analyses for authorizations.”
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Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reintroduced the NCAA Accountability Act on Tuesday which would “establish due process protections for student-athletes, coaches, and universities that are under investigation by the NCAA for rule violations.”
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All-star panelist Clint Brewer joined Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy where he offered his thoughts on Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s antitrust lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
Skrmetti joined Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in filing the lawsuit against the NCAA last week, arguing the organization violates federal antitrust laws with its “anticompetitive restrictions on the ability of current and future student-athletes to benefit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL).”
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined Saturday’s edition of Fox & friends to discuss his antitrust lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Thursday his office was apart of a $350 million multistate settlement with Publicis Health to resolve investigations into the marketing firm’s role in the prescription opioid crisis.
The Volunteer State will receive more than $9 million from the settlement, with a majority of the funds placed into the state’s Opioid Abatement Trust Fund to support local efforts addressing the opioid epidemic.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in filing an antitrust lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) on Wednesday.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined a coalition of 26 other attorneys general in sending a letter to the Biden administration proclaiming support for the steps Texas has taken at its border with Mexico to prevent illegal immigrant crossings.
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the Biden administration to allow Border Patrol agents to cut through or move razor wire Texas installed on its border with Mexico to prevent illegal entries into the U.S.
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For the first time in the United States, an investment firm is being sued for its misleading Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment strategies, and our state is leading the charge.
Tennessee State Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti accused BlackRock, Inc. of deceiving Tennesseans by downplaying their ESG-related investment goals and pressuring corporate boards to do the same.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti told The Tennessee Star in a Thursday phone interview that his office’s unredacted lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, shows the company is using strategies to increase Instagram user engagement which are “catastrophic” to teenage girls, and warned that other social media companies may soon land within his crosshairs.
Speaking to The Star, Skrmetti explained that his office’s unredacted complaint against Meta, which it released last week, outlines “a very sophisticated effort by a very sophisticated company to design a product that kids would have a hard time not using.” Meta’s focus on children, Skrmetti said, was motivated by a desire to keep them using the platforms into adulthood, when the company will have collected years worth of data that can be used by advertisers.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti led a group of 18 other state attorneys general in filing a public comment letter in opposition to the Department of Commerce’s “Business Diversity Principles” proposal.
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Esteemed former Vanderbilt professor, renowned scholar, and all-star panelist Dr. Carol Swain joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Tuesday to discuss the growing scandal involving Harvard’s Claudine Gay and increasingly difficult-to-defend allegations of plagiarism by the Ivy League school’s president.
Swain contends that Gay failed to credit her for sections of the book Black Faces, Black Interests, accusing her of derivative work since her dissertation, which Swain claims builds upon her own groundbreaking research.
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Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti appeared in-studio on Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, to discuss the first-of-its-kind lawsuit his office filed Monday against financial services giant BlackRock over alleged violations of consumer protection laws.
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Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti appeared in-studio on Tuesday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, where he laid out the reasons why BlackRock’s alleged double standards that they are pushing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives that effectively force companies to shift their priorities are not just afoul consumer protection laws.
If left unchecked, Skrmetti argues, the opaque and unaccountable nature of corporate policymaking threatens the foundational principles of self-governance.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined 25 other state attorneys general this week in sending a letter to Congress requesting lawmakers pass the Immigration Enforcement Partnership Act of 2023.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti led a group of 19 other state attorneys general in filing a public comment letter in opposition to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) “Proposed Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace.”
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti led a coalition of 20 other attorneys general in drafting a comment letter in opposition to a new U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) proposal regarding consumer boilers.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined a group of 25 other state attorneys general in issuing a joint statement condemning Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti led a coalition of 19 states in sending a letter to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) expressing opposition to a proposed rule regarding workplace abortion accommodations.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Thursday the state will receive $882,312 from a multi-state settlement with software company Blackbaud.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed an official complaint against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Monday, alleging the two entities have failed to produce documents regarding the release of immigrant detainees into Tennessee.
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The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a request from the plaintiffs in L.W. v. Skrmetti on Thursday to block a Tennessee law banning “gender-affirming care” on minors, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and sex-change surgeries.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed another public comment opposing the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) latest rule to set new efficiency standards for consumer water heaters.
The DOE’s rule, proposed in July, would “prescribe energy conservation standards for various consumer products and certain commercial and industrial equipment, including consumer water heaters,” according to the department.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Thursday his office reached a $44.5 million settlement with Food City over the grocery store chain’s opioid-related misconduct.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed a motion to compel the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok to comply with an earlier court order requiring it to produce relevant evidence in response to a multi-state investigation.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has led a coalition of 22 state attorneys general in a letter warning the Net Zero Financial Service Providers Alliance (NZFSPA) that their “coordinated commitments may violate state and federal antitrust and consumer protection laws.”
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Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti warned Tenessee residents on Wednesday of a scam business that utilizes Tennessee Department of Commerce & Insurance (TDCI) Commissioner Carter Lawrence’s forged signature through a Facebook Marketplace listing.
As part of the scam, according to Skrmetii’s office, a listing is placed on Facebook Marketplace for a nonexistent tractor for sale.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Tuesday that the Volunteer State was included in the 41 states and the District of Columbia which reached a $35 million settlement with leasing company Tempoe, LLC.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has joined a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from 54 states and territories urging federal lawmakers to study and eventually propose legislation to protect children from being exploited through artificial intelligence (AI).
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has joined a bipartisan coalition of 33 attorneys general in sending a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the rise of flavored, disposable e-cigarettes use among the nation’s youth.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has joined a coalition of 15 other state attorneys general in sending a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler regarding business practices reported by the China-founded, fast-fashion retailer SHEIN.
SHEIN was founded in Nanjing, China in 2008 has become the world’s largest fashion retailer with an estimated value of $64 billion. The company’s mobile app is currently the fourth most downloaded app in the United States. In addition, the company is one of TikTok’s largest advertisers and pays thousands of social media “influencers” to market its wares to consumers via videos on the platform.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has led a coalition of 24 states in urging Congress to pass Representative Mark Green’s (R-TN-07) Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has released a statement regarding a recent comment letter he and 18 other state attorneys general signed opposing a new U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule regarding abortions.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s office is warning Tennesseans with student debt of scammers offering relief that they cannot provide in wake of the Biden Administration’s recent forgiveness of $39 billion in Federal student loans.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced Tuesday his office has joined a new, joint state and federal initiative to crack down on illegal telemarketing calls to U.S. consumers.
Skrmetti’s office joined the Operation Stop Scam Calls intuitive, a partnership with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), law enforcement agencies nationwide, and attorneys general from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathon Skrmetti joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on the newsmaker line Monday to discuss the nation’s first-ever decision by the Court to uphold a prohibition on medical procedures performed on minors.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has led a coalition of 20 state attorneys general in commenting on the latest proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on regulations regarding Ethylene Oxide (EtO) and related emissions standards promulgated under the Clean Air Act (CAA).
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