Monday was a day of deferred judgment in two legislative tribunals. The state Senate in Nashville deadlocked 14 to 14 on SB 915/HB 1072, which had passed the House hours earlier. The bill would grant the state an automatic stay, pending completion of the appeals process, of any judicial injunction against its constitutional authority, and prohibit the use of local-government funds for litigations against the state. Frustrated by the lack of immediate passage, sponsor Brian Kelsey asked that the bill be rolled (postponed) for reconsideration on Wednesday.
A companion bill of sorts, SB 868/HB 1130, was slated for consideration in House and Senate finance committees. It would counter litigation against the state differently, creating a three-member state Chancery Court, elected statewide, that would serve as the trial court for any suits contesting the constitutionality of state authority. Senator Mike Bell, the chief sponsor, has made it obvious that he intended for the court to serve the partisan purpose of reflecting the state’s Republican majority.
• On Monday, meanwhile, the Shelby County Commission deferred action on a proposal from county Assessor Melvin Burgess to conduct property reappraisals in two-year intervals instead of in four-year intervals, as is done currently.
Other resolutions had an easier time. One of them, which passed unanimously, was to establish a Black Caucus “for purposes of addressing the concerns of Black communities located in Shelby County.” Others honored retiring Memphis Police Director Mike Rallings, Shelby County Schools Superintendent Joris Ray, and University of Memphis basketball Coach Penny Hardaway.
Also honored was the late Roscoe Dixon, the longtime Shelby County legislator who served in the state House and the state Senate and did time after being indicted in the FBI’s Tennessee Waltz bribery sting of 2005. Upon his release from prison, Dixon became a devoted board member of the local NAACP, was a principal of the Memphis Health Center and CAAP, a rehab center. Commissioner Turner, author of the resolution honoring Dixon, announced that the NAACP would hold an annual “Roscoe Dixon Voter Registration Drive” in his honor.
On Saturday night, Dixon was remembered at a memorial service at the Serenity Center. Among those contributing memories were members of the General Assembly, past and present, including state Rep. Joe Towns, who presided over the testimonials, and other veterans of public service from both parties, including former Shelby County mayors A C Wharton, Jim Rout, and Mark Luttrell.
• I have covered four previous Tennessee governors in this space: Ned Ray McWherter, Don Sundquist, Phil Bredesen, and Bill Haslam, two Democrats and two Republicans. All of them had some penchant for surprise and — what to call it? — idiosyncratic thoughtfulness. The current governor, Republican Bill Lee, seems otherwise. His case is one of almost syllogistic predictability: Know his party, know his position.
Lee is undeviatingly party-line: pro-voucher, pro-gun, anti-“socialism,” LGBTQ-aversive. His bland affability allowed him to end-run a ruthless competition between Diane Black and Randy Boyd in the 2018 GOP primary; his majority-party label gave him an automatic win over Democrat Karl Dean. That he would be the chief executive who gave us the NRA’s dream of permitless firearms-carry almost went without saying. The irony of his position, amid an ever-increasing storm of gun massacres, escapes him.
In Memphis on Friday, April 23rd, he averred that the “constitutional-carry” bill he signed into law would somehow both extend the God-given freedom of Tennesseans and protect them against carnage. Lee will be heavily favored to win a second term next year. Each of his aforementioned predecessors demonstrated a capacity for change. Elements of Lee’s personal history indicate a certain inner strength. So let us hope.
