Tennessee State Representative Susan Lynn (R-Mount Juliet) joined Monday’s edition of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy to discuss the General Assembly’s legislative session this year, specifically concerning its approach to Governor Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act.
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Tennessee State Senator Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) and State Representative Susan Lynn (R-Mount Juliet) filed legislation this week that would make new school-specific security technology eligible for the school safety grants approved by the General Assembly earlier this year.
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Tennessee ranks as one of the top states in the nation in terms of how it funds its pension systems, according to a report that the Arlington, Virginia-based American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) released this week. ALEC officials titled their report Unaccountable and Unaffordable, 2020. This annual report collects and analyzes each state’s unfunded public pension liabilities. The report finds state governments’ unfunded liabilities total $5.82 trillion nationwide – an average of $17,748 per person.
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Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee and other officials announced Thursday they will submit pro-life legislation to the Tennessee General Assembly durable enough to survive a court challenge and even a left-leaning judge.
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Two Tennessee state representatives, one a Republican, another a Democrat, have called out Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander for what they call “a dangerous proposal” in a bill he’s introduced to address surprise medical billing.
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The townhome of Jeremy H. G. Hayes, candidate for State Representative for the 57th District, a seat currently held by Susan Lynn (R-Mt. Juliet), was raided by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) on Tuesday morning, a move the candidate says was politically motivated. Four TBI agents came with a warrant to search his townhome, reportedly telling Hayes they have “Reason to believe you voted out of district in the last primary.” Simultaneously and without a warrant, three additional agents went to the home of Hayes’ grandmother, where Hayes tells The Tennessee Star he stays four to five nights a week to care for the 78-year old who suffers from multiple sclerosis and stage IV kidney failure. Lynn’s claim that Hayes, one of her challengers in the August Republican primary, lives out of the district has been going on for the better part of a year. She told The Star back in March 2017 about Hayes, “he doesn’t live in Wilson County nor in my district.” Hayes provided a digital photograph of his State of Tennessee driver’s license to The Star that shows an issue date of April 2017 and an expiration of April 2025, with a Mt. Juliet address, information that…
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A bill introduced to remove a portion of the diversion of fuel tax “user fees” from the Highway Fund to the General Fund was amended so drastically that the bill was rewritten so that it rewrote the bill, and instead increased the amount distributed to the Wildlife Resources Fund. As reported by The Tennessee Star, and confirmed by Rep. Susan Lynn (R-Mt. Juliet), Tennessee Code Annotated requires that portions of the “user fee” fuel taxes be allocated to the General Fund to cover the costs incurred by the state Department of Revenue for the collection of those taxes. HB 910 / SB 230 by Rep. Tim Wirgau (R-Buchanan) and Sen. Mark Green (R-Clarksville), respectively, would have “eliminated the administrative allocation of the gasoline tax, motor fuel tax, and gasoline inspection tax to the General Fund.” It would have no impact on the total collections from the various fuel taxes, but would simply allocate them to the Highway Fund rather than the General Fund. The fiscal memo for the original bill reported increases to the Highway Fund of $12 million and to local governments of $2.6 million. The bill was then completely re-written by the amendment so that the diversions to the General Fund…
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In an exclusive interview with The Tennessee Star, Jeremy Hayes says he will challenge State Rep. Susan Lynn (R-Mt. Juliet) in the 2018 Republican primary because of her support for Gov. Haslam’s gas tax increase proposal. “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s the dumbest bill,” Hayes, the former co-chairman of the Trump campaign in Wilson County, told The Star’s Laura Baigert when asked his position on the governor’s IMPROVE Act, which raises the price of gas by 7 cents per gallon and the price of diesel fuel by 12 cents per gallon. “You do not need a math degree to understand that this thing does not make sense,” Hayes said: One, they’re telling us that they’re going to save half a cent in the grocery store, on your food tax. Well then, proposing raising the fuel tax 7 cents the first year, the diesel tax 12 cents the first year. What’s that going to do? . . . They’re going to pass that tax on to the consumer. “In addition they want to put it an index,” Hayes added, citing another feature of the governor’s gas tax proposal he opposes. Hayes also noted that the gas tax increase is unnecessary,…
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