Tennessee Legislature adjourns public safety session

(CN) — Republicans are calling their work during a special session of Tennessee’s General Assembly “important, difficult and hopeful.” But Democrats have a decidedly different perspective.

“It’s been a complete waste of time, a waste of money on the taxpayers,” Democratic House member Karen Camper, of Memphis, said Tuesday after the Legislature adjourned sine die. The seven-day special session focusing on public safety had been called by Governor Bill Lee in May, two months after three adults and three students were shot dead at Nashville’s Covenant School.

Although Lee formed a bipartisan task force ahead of the session to recommend bills to be considered as soon as lawmakers gaveled in, Republican leaders instead used the first days of the session to rewrite rules of decorum for members and visitors in the state Capitol complex. Then, they immediately enforced the new rules to muzzle gun control advocates in the crowd, as well as to threaten any Democratic member who spoke out of turn on the House floor.

On Aug. 23, a judge issued a temporary restraining order against a rule prohibiting members of the public from carrying signs in the Capitol, a decision that was upheld Monday while litigation is pending. Also on Monday, the new rules were employed to silence Democratic State Representative Justin Jones of Nashville, claiming he spoke off-topic twice. Immediately afterward, Democrats walked out of the chamber in protest.

Jones was one of two Black Democratic lawmakers the Republican supermajority voted to expel in April after members of the minority party staged a protest against gun violence on the House floor. They were later reinstated by unanimous votes of local commissions.

“What’s happening is not democratic, it’s authoritarianism,” Jones said in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.

On Tuesday, Jones sought to call a vote of “no confidence” for Republican Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton, but it was barred as being out of order.

“People who are confident in their power don’t have to silence critics or dissent,” Jones said Tuesday.

Among the bills that were passed by Republicans during the special session was HB7032, which requires health insurance carriers “to provide mental health services and treatment to the same extent that the carriers and providers provide alcoholism and drug dependence services and treatment.”

Another bill, HB7004, will require local law enforcement to be notified when someone is released from an involuntary hold in a mental health care facility. A third bill, HB7073, gives courts more discretion to increase sentences for juveniles convicted of certain violent crimes. The Legislature also passed a bill funding periodic free gun lock giveaways.

In a news conference after the session ended Tuesday, Lee said the new legislation represents “continuous improvement.”

“We have made some headway this week,“ he said, adding the special session “elevated the conversation on public safety that will continue into the future … Our state is safer today as a result of this session.” 

Democratic State Senator Raumesh Akbari, a member of the governor’s task force, disagreed with Lee about the session’s effectiveness.

“What we asked for was something really straightforward, something we all should be able to agree upon,” Akbari said, noting the new laws did not improve background checks for gun purchases, or prevent those in mental crisis from accessing weapons, or impose penalties on gun owners who lose unsecured weapons to theft.

“We called a special session to do something and we did nothing. No one should leave this building today saying we made Tennessee safer because it’s simply not true. We didn’t enact any new policies, we didn’t do anything to address the root causes of gun violence and we didn’t do anything to meet the needs of these parents who are crying out to just do something.”

The General Assembly will reconvene at 12 noon on Jan. 9.

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