by Jon Styf
The Tennessee Senate went into session briefly Thursday only to adjourn until 4 p.m. on Monday.
The Senate passed three bills Wednesday and are awaiting those bills returning but Sen. Jack Johnson, R-Franklin, told media he didn’t expect the Senate to take up any other bills.
“We feel like we’ve accomplished what we came here to do, which is to address the things the governor wanted us to take up in this special session,” Johnson (pictured above) said.
The special session will cost the state additionally based upon the per diem amount per legislative day, which WKRN reported was $7,989 in the Senate with mileage costing $6,137 per day and a total cost of $14,126 per day.
In the House of Representatives costs one day costs $24,903 in per diem and $19,547 in mileage for a total cost of $44,450.
That up from 2021, when it cost $30,750 for per diem and $15,474 for mileage for one round trip for the combined House and Senate.
The three Senate bills included bills addressing eliminating taxes on handgun safety devices, the communication timeline of criminal court proceedings to the Tennessee Bureau of Information and a bill creating a statewide report on human trafficking.
Senate Bill 7085, the handgun safety bill passed through the Senate committee, puts in new requirements to add safe storage training to future handgun safety courses and also eliminates sales taxes on firearm safes and safety devices starting on Nov. 1.
Senate Bill 7086 requires a clerk of the circuit or general sessions court to notify TBI of the result of criminal proceedings within three business days instead of within 30 days.
Senate Bill 7088 will create a new child and human trafficking crimes report from TBI’s human trafficking unit. The report will be due in December each year before the Legislature begins its session.
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter of The Center Square who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies.
Photo “Jack Johnson” by Jack Johnson.
they need to adjourn completely until the regular session
this whole thing is a joke
@levelheadedconservative: That comment isn’t confined to a Special Session. It also covers coming to town for a one hour meeting, or just to pick up mail, and claiming per diem for the day. That sort of thing can happen year round.
@cannoneertwo: Nothing in this extraordinary session had to happen outside the ordinary session. One might say it is the Governor who is stealing from the constituency by calling this session.
I think its time to prorate per diem based on the length of time the Senate is actually in session. If Tennessee were “run like a business” we might have to consider that these employees might be “stealing from the company”.