Author: Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout

TN AG Moves to Close NAACP Suit On Voting Rights

Post author By Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout
Post date October 23, 2023

A lingering legal battle that was poised to be settled this summer, leading to a clearer pathway for tens of thousands of Tennesseans to restore their voting rights, has instead reignited into a contentious court fight with no certain outcome ahead of the next presidential election.

One in five Black voting-age Tennesseans lacks the right to vote due to a past criminal conviction — likely the highest rate of African-American disenfranchisement in the nation, according to the Sentencing Project. Overall, nearly 10 percent of the Tennessee electorate — 470,000 people — have lost their right to vote due to convictions.

In a lawsuit filed in December 2020, the Tennessee Conference of the NAACP and five residents denied the right to vote alleged Tennessee officials failed to follow state laws that allow individuals to legally restore their voting rights after serving their sentences and completing parole. Instead, the state implemented inaccessible and opaque processes that impede legal pathways for restoring rights, the lawsuit claimed.

Close to settling key claims in the case over the summer — potentially ahead of high profile local elections in Nashville, Memphis, and for state office — attorneys for the state abruptly broke off talks in late July, catching lawyers for the NAACP by surprise, legal filings show. Then, on August 2nd, lawyers for the Tennessee Attorney General filed motions asking a judge to reject the claims entirely.

Tennessee Supreme Court rules in felony voting rights case
Tennessee Lookout

“The Elections Division, TDOC, and Governor’s office had the opportunity this summer to create accessible, transparent, and uniform procedures to allow the over 470,000 disenfranchised Tennesseans a fair shot at getting their voting rights restored and rejoining their communities as full citizens,” Blair Bowie, an attorney representing the NAACP with the DC-based Campaign Legal Center, said Friday.

“Instead, they blew up the voting rights restoration system entirely and imposed effectively permanent disenfranchisement on July 21st,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Tennessee Attorney General did not respond to emailed questions on Friday.

The breakdown in the federal case came shortly after a June 29th ruling by the Tennessee Supreme Court against Ernest Falls, who was denied the right to vote in Tennessee in 2020 after receiving clemency in Virginia for a decades-old crime.

The Supreme Court ruled that Falls, also represented by the Campaign Legal Center, was required to show he had paid all outstanding court costs, restitution and child support obligations in Virginia to establish his voting rights — in addition to proof of the Virginia clemency.

Secretary of State Mark Goins then issued a memo that incorporated expanded requirements for all state residents seeking to restore their voting rights — regardless of where their conviction took place. In addition to the process of demonstrating they, too, had paid court costs and other financial obligations related to their crime, in-state residents must now show they also “have been pardoned by a Governor, U.S. President, or other appropriate authority of a state or have had their full rights of citizenship restored as prescribed by law.”

The memo wasn’t shared with attorneys for the NAACP who had been involved with them in settlement negotiations for months, legal filings said.

“Plaintiffs learned from public reporting that Defendant Goins had that day issued guidance to county election officials changing his interpretation of the State’s requirements for individuals with felony convictions to restore their voting rights,” court records said.

In seeking a ruling dismissing major elements of the case, state lawyers have argued in motions for summary judgment that the five individuals names in the suit lack standing in court.

Tennessee does have a process in place for restoration of rights, one that provides a pathway to restoring rights while preserving election integrity, they argued.

“Tennessee does not reject all voter registration forms on which the applicant affirmed that they have a felony conviction,” the state’s filings said. “Moreover, Tennessee’s practice is rationally related to its legitimate interest in combatting voter fraud, safeguarding voter confidence, and ensuring accurate record keeping.”

The Sentencing Project’s national voting rights study found that that 3,415 Tennessee voting-age citizens have been granted Certificates of Restoration since 2016 — fewer than 1 percent of those with prior felony convictions estimated to be eligible to vote under Tennessee law.

The NAACP lawsuit argues that the current administration of voting rights restoration certificates violate the U.S. Constitution’s due process and the equal protection rights.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.

Tags Jonathan Skrmetti, Memphis, NAACP, Tennessee Lookout, voting rights

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Tennessee Leads Nation in Arresting and Punishing Pregnant Women

Post author By Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout
Post date September 21, 2023

Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina lead the nation in arresting and criminally punishing women for allegedly posing a danger to their fetuses, according to a report released by advocacy group Pregnancy Justice.

Nationwide, nearly 1,400 people were arrested or subject to disparate bail, sentencing, and probation for conduct related to their pregnancies between 2005 and the U.S. Supreme Court decision in June 2022 dismantling abortion rights, the report found. The vast majority were poor, white women, though poor Black women were disproportionately represented.

Tennessee accounted for 131 of those cases.

“Pregnant people have been criminalized at an accelerating rate for actions that would not be illegal but for a person’s pregnancy,” Lourdes Rivera, president of Pregnancy Justice, told reporters on Tuesday.

The report shows a substantial increase in the number of people being charged for crimes tied to pregnancy. In 2013, Pregnancy Justice released a report that found that law enforcement had targeted 413 pregnant people between 1973 — which marked the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion — and 2005. The new findings show those instances have tripled.

When we talk about back alley or secret abortions, that’s not the real risk to people’s lives.

– Nina Gurek, Healthy and Free Tennessee

Advocates pointed to two key drivers in criminalizing pregnancy: the expansion of so-called fetal rights or “personhood” laws and a more punitive approach to substance use among pregnant women — even as many states move to decriminalize drug abuse in line with evolving approaches to addiction. The majority of criminal cases documented by Pregnancy Justice related to substance use, including marijuana, cocaine, or methamphetamines. In about one-quarter of these cases, the substance was legal: such as nicotine, alcohol, or prescription opiates.

In Tennessee, both factors hold true. Tennessee law says that “life begins at conception.”

In 2014, Tennessee also became the first state in the nation to enact a “fetal assault law.” It allowed women to be prosecuted for drug use during pregnancy. The measure was criticized by state and national health and advocacy groups and was allowed to expire in 2016. Several efforts to reimplement the law have been introduced in the Tennessee Legislature since.

Nina Gurek, policy director for Healthy and Free Tennessee, said that despite the law’s expiration her organization continues to hear of prosecutions involving pregnant women on child abuse or neglect charges involving legal and illegal substance use allegations.

“We know it’s still happening,” she said.

The Pregnancy Justice report warns that more people could face criminal charges or increased bonds or sentencing as states have enacted abortion bans and restrictions.

Tennessee’s strict abortion ban explicitly exempts pregnant women from prosecution for seeking abortions. But Gurek said she places no trust in the law’s protections. “When we talk about back alley or secret abortions, that’s not the real risk to people’s lives, it’s handcuffs.”

Tags abortion, Memphis, pregnancy, Pregnancy Justice, Tennessee General Assembly

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TN AG, ACLU Drop Suit Over House Sign Ban

Post author By Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout
Post date September 14, 2023

State Capitol (Photo: Tennessee State Government)

In a coda to a bruising special session of the Tennessee Legislature that wrapped up last month, lawyers representing three women who silently defied a House ban on signs and attorneys for the state have agreed to bring a First Amendment legal challenge to a close.

The challenge to new House rules that barred protest signs was filed on the third day of Tennessee’s specially called session on public safety — after state troopers removed three women quietly holding pieces of paper that read “1 KID > ALL THE GUNS” from a legislative committee room.

As contentious gatherings and frustrated protestors crowded the legislative session, inside a Nashville courthouse Chancellor Anne Martin immediately granted a temporary restraining order preventing the ban on signs from being enforced. Five days later, Martin ruled again, finding that the sign ban would likely be found unconstitutional at trial. House leaders were unable to enforce the ban for five of the seven days of the special session.

House Republicans lose decision on sign bans

Attorneys for the Tennessee Attorney General, representing House Speaker Cameron Sexton, the Tennessee Highway Patrol and other enforcers of the ban have now asked for the case to be dismissed as moot.

“The special session has now adjourned,” the state’s legal filings said. “And the procedural rules adopted by the House for the special session — including the Sign Regulation that the (women) asked this court to declare unconstitutional and enjoin — are no longer in effect.”

Attorneys for the ACLU of Tennessee, who represented the three women — Allison Polidor, Erica Bowton, and Maryam Abolfazli — do not oppose dismissing the case, but expect to file a motion seeking attorney fees and costs from the state, legal filings said.

The House rule banning signs during the special session originated in a private meeting in Sexton’s office that took place without public notice on the first day of the special session, the Tennessean reported. The 31 pages outlining the special session’s rules relied largely on a template for the House’s permanent rules of order, but added this sentence:

“No voice or noise amplification devices, flags, signs, or banners shall be permitted in the galleries of the House of Representatives.”

The House’s permanent rules of order for the 113th Assembly, which reconvenes in January for the second year of its two-year cycle, do not contain the same sentence.

Tags ACLU-TN, Memphis, special session, Tennessee General Assembly

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Court Promises Swift Ruling on Tennessee Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Minors

Post author By Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout
Post date September 5, 2023

A federal appeals court has promised a swift decision in a legal challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors.

At issue during Friday’s oral arguments, held before a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals: whether to set aside a lower court’s temporary block of the law.

The appeals court has already intervened once, on an emergency basis, allowing Tennessee’s law to take effect until they could hear arguments in the case. The intervention, in July, marked the the first time a federal court allowed a ban on gender-affirming care to take effect in the country. Other federal courts have blocked such bans, finding they violated the Equal Protection Clause, Due Process Clause, and First Amendment.

Addressing the court on Friday, Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, argued the law discriminates on the basis of sex. The U.S. government has also intervened in the case on behalf of the Tennessee plaintiffs, who include children receiving gender-affirming care and their parents.

Federal court temporarily halts Tennessee ban on transgender care for minors

Clark L. Hildabrand. deputy chief of staff and senior counsel for the Tennessee Attorney General argued the courts should defer to the legislature.

The court on Friday heard a nearly-identical challenge to a ban on gender-affirming care for minors in Kentucky.

Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, acknowledged he struggled with both cases. Sutton authored the July decision allowing Tennessee’s ban to go into effect.

“I think we have to come to grips with the larger picture — at age 18, this all goes away,” he said. Sutton said he was struck by arguments that withholding treatment for minors can subject them to harm.

“I think this is your strongest argument,” he said, adding that compassion is also needed for those who may later regret receiving care. “I feel like there’s compassion in both directions.”

Tags ACLU, gender affirming care for minors, Memphis

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Report: Firearms Are Leading Cause of Death in Tennessee Kids

Post author By Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout
Post date August 14, 2023

A day after the March 27th mass shooting at The Covenant School, a woman is overcome with emotion in front of an impromptu memorial. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Children are dying at higher rates from gun violence in Tennessee than in the rest of the nation, an ongoing geographic disparity that has only widened in recent years, and one that most gravely impacts the state’s Black families, whose children and teens are being killed by firearms at twice the rate as white kids.

The data tracking child deaths in Tennessee between 2017 and 2021 was released as part of an annual report compiled by the Tennessee Department of Health with the assistance of district attorneys, child welfare advocates, elected officials, and other experts who regularly meet in teams to review the deaths of Tennessee kids year-round.

The report this year was released just ahead of a special legislative session called to address public safety after a lone assailant fired 152 rounds inside a Nashville Christian school, killing three nine-year-old children and three adults in less than 15 minutes, according to police.

The report focuses on all causes of child deaths among kids 17 and younger, finding that the overall mortality rate from all causes — accidents, suicides, premature births, other medical conditions and murder — in Tennessee is nearly twice the national average.

Gun deaths among children, however, have increased by significant rates; by 2021, Tennessee’s rates of firearm deaths among children were more than 36 percent more than the national average.

In 2021, the latest year analyzed, 67 Tennessee children died by homicide. Fifty-three of the victims were Black, a rate four times as high as white children.

“Child health is a critical indicator of a society’s well-being,” the report noted. The burdens of homicide among Tennessee children is higher among Blacks, males, and children aged 15 to 17, with firearms being the leading means of lethality.

The racial disparity is reversed when it comes to children and teens who died by suicide, with white children six times as likely to take their own lives. Suicides accounted for the deaths of 32 white children and five Black children between 2017 and 2021. More than half of all suicide deaths among Tennessee children (54 percent) were a result of firearms.

The report does not make specific recommendations, instead noting two “prevention opportunities”: promoting safer firearms handling and storage and programs encouraging parental supervision.

The prevention opportunities mirror the current GOP-driven legislative agenda for the special session, set to begin August 21st. While advocates for gun safety laws, among them parents of children who attend The Covenant School, have called for stricter background checks and other gun regulations, Gov. Bill Lee has set an agenda that includes unspecified recommendations for firearm staff storage.

The governor’s agenda, set forth in a proclamation also makes mention of protective orders, but other elected GOP leaders have made clear they will not consider any measures that would remove guns from any individuals.

2023 CFR Annual Report with Promulgation Statement

Tags Bill Lee, children, guns, Homicide, Memphis, Tennessee Lookout

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Tennessee AG Asserts Right to Out-Of-State Abortion, Transgender Care Medical Records

Post author By Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout
Post date July 18, 2023

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has joined Republican counterparts in 18 states in an effort to prevent the federal government from shielding the medical records of those who cross state lines to obtain legal abortion or gender-affirming care from investigations in their home state.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed a new privacy rule for certain medical records in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion rights last year.

The rule would prohibit disclosure of medical records of individuals who seek reproductive health care in a state in which the care is legal to officials or litigants in a home state in which it is not.

Under the proposed rule, the records would be shielded from law enforcement, court subpoenas and in civil lawsuits and family court proceedings.

“The proposed rule here continues the administration’s efforts to override state abortion law,” a June 16th letter from the attorneys general to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said.

The letter called the move to amend HIPAA — the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — unconstitutional, a result of “political pressure from the White House” that would interfere with states’ abilities to protect the health and safety of their citizens and to pursue evidence of criminal activity.

The existence of the letter was first reported Friday by the Mississippi Free Press.

A spokesperson for Skrmetti on Monday reiterated the letter’s assertion that the federal agency was overstepping its authority in contemplating the new privacy rule.

“HHS does not have authority to change the law in contradiction of the statute passed by Congress,” Elizabeth Lane Johnson, a spokesperson for Skrmetti, said in a statement Monday.

The rule was first proposed in April after President Joe Biden issued an executive order directing HHS to “consider ways to strengthen the protection of sensitive information related to reproductive health care services and bolster patient-provider confidentiality.”

In unveiling the proposed rule — which is winding its way through the federal government’s rule-making process — HHS Office of Civil Rights Director Melanie Fontes Rainer said it came in response to the concerns of doctors and patients who feared adverse actions against those seeking care in another state that is illegal or restricted in their own.

“Today’s proposed rule is about safeguarding this trust in the patient-provider relationship, and ensuring that when you go to the doctor, your private medical records will not be disclosed and used against you for seeking lawful care,” Fontes Rainer said. “This is a real problem we are hearing and seeing, and we developed today’s proposed rule to help address this gap and provide clarity to our health care providers and patients.”

In their letter, attorneys general pushed back against the notion that they would seek to prosecute those seeking care outside their home state, calling such a claim “fear-mongering.”

Today’s proposed rule is about safeguarding this trust in the patient-provider relationship, and ensuring that when you go to the doctor, your private medical records will not be disclosed and used against you for seeking lawful care.

– Melanie Fontes Rainer, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

The letter notes that state laws criminalizing abortion consistently provide an exception for women seeking the procedure. While the HHS proposed rule does not explicitly mention transgender care, the attorneys general conclude in their letter that such care would fall under the umbrella of the plan.

Their letter outlined a hypothetical: Should officials believe an abortion provider in their home state provided an illegal abortion, falsified medical records then sent their patient for additional care out of state to cover it up, the HHS rule would bar their investigation, the letter said.

The letter also suggests the rule would bar a complete investigation into misconduct against a doctor licensed in multiple states and “could inhibit state’s investigation of child abuse and other serious crimes.”

While the letter does not specify the circumstances in which child abuse investigations would warrant out-of-state reproductive health care records, it criticizes the federal government’s “radical approach to transgender issues” and says the “administration may intend to use the proposed rule to obstruct state laws concerning experimental gender-transition procedures for minors.”

Download the letter here.

Tags abortion, Jonathan Skrmetti, Memphis, transgender

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Department of Children’s Services Wrestles With Solutions for Housing Kids in State Custody

Post author By Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout
Post date July 7, 2023

Margi Quin, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, photographed on June 2, 2023. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Three months after the Department of Children’s Services announced it had ended the practice of taking abused and neglected kids to state offices overnight, solutions are proving difficult to sustain as several faith-based shelters have closed and some kids remain in hospitals for lack of other options.

Kids are sleeping in church-run facilities and spaces opened by community groups while they await more permanent housing. And a few children with serious medical or mental health needs have been moved out of hospitals — where kids were routinely kept for as many as eight months for lack of a home to go to.

Those children — five in total — are now living temporarily in state-run cottages formerly used to provide round-the-clock care to people with intellectual disabilities. State officials hope to bring more children into those homes.

But deep challenges remain in finding places for children to go in the first days and weeks they are first taken into custody and before more permanent housing can be found for them in foster care, a residential treatment facility or in their return home to families.

“I think bed capacity is still a major area of concern for us,” DCS Commissioner Margi Quin said via email last week. “The state has closed facilities, but we have not opened any new facilities.”

Children between the ages of six and 15 are still being kept in Tennessee hospitals 10 days to seven weeks after being cleared for discharge while DCS officials seek alternatives, according to a DCS spokesperson. DCS did not provide a total number of kids who are still hospitalized while they await a spot somewhere else.

Meanwhile some of the temporary faith-based shelters that volunteered to take kids in have since pulled back.

In Middle Tennessee, for example, three faith-based community groups that initially stepped forward to fill the void in temporary housing pulled back weeks later, leaving —in one instance — caseworkers with no other option than to drive four children 200 miles to Memphis for a place to sleep.

A temporary shelter that opened in a church space in Rutherford County closed June 13. Another shelter in Williamson County paused its services on May 29, but remains in discussions with state officials on possibly reopening it. Another shelter in Wilson County has asked to pre-approve any children and youth brought there.

Some churches and community groups that stepped forward to provide temporary shelter have found some children’s behavior difficult to accommodate. In one instance, four girls were driven from one Middle Tennessee shelter to Memphis after a fight broke out, according to Alex Denis, an agency spokesperson.

Denis noted that some of the faith-based shelters that have volunteered to take kids agreed to do so for a limited time period only and the roster of organizations hosting children overnight frequently changes.

There are currently 27 such shelters across Tennessee, down from 29 in April, to temporarily house kids coming into custody. The spaces serve Tennessee’s 95 counties. By necessity, caseworkers and children must continue to drive across county lines for temporary housing, a DCS spokesperson said.

“If beds are filled in a region, we must ago to the next closest available,” Denis said. “It’s not always the most convenient option. We understand that and are working to add to our placement options.”

In all instances, caseworkers must drive children to, from shelters and remain with them as long as they are in a temporary situation.

Quin said state officials are close to finalizing a plan to provide more space as soon as this month.

Kids in state custody forced to sleep on floors in state office building
Tennessee Lookout

Quin was tapped by Gov. Bill Lee in September to address the rising chaos within the state’s $1 billion child welfare agency, which left children not only sleeping on office floors and hospital beds but left in dangerous or abusive circumstances in state care, a detailed and damning report from the Tennessee Comptroller found last year.

Addressing the immediate needs of children when they first come into custody is only one of the problems highlighted by the Comptroller. The practice of putting kids to sleep on office floors was first highlighted in a report by the Lookout, which published video of children sleeping without bedding or mattresses on an office floor in August 2021.

Kids with acute and ongoing needs — kids with tracheotomies and children in wheelchairs, kids with developmental disabilities, youth with mental health needs waiting on a bed in a mental health treatment facility and those with behavioral problems that include violence — are among the most difficult to care for at any point they come into state custody.

DCS has worked with the state’s Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (DIDD) to begin transferring kids with high medical needs out of hospitals and into Tennessee Strong Homes, former small residential facilities that had previous housed people transitioning out of state-run institutions that closed down nearly a decade ago.

The children being moved to those facilities are medically fragile, with chronic health conditions that may confine them to wheelchairs, require feeding or breathing tubes, may have vision, hearing or communication challenges and are often developmentally disabled, according to Dr. Deborah Lowen, Deputy Commissioner of Child Health for DCS.

The homes are a temporary way station until kids can be reunified with families or enter foster care, with DCS footing the bill for room and board while TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program, covers the cost of medical care.

Child advocates say they’re concerned about moving kids to facilities staffed by professional caregivers, instead of families.

“We know children do better in families and communities,” said Michele Johnson, executive director of the Tennessee Justice Center, which advocates for children’s access to safety net programs, including healthcare. “It’s taking them away from parents and any sense of normalcy…Who is advocating for these children to grow up in communities?”

In her work trying to connect families with TennCare, Johnson said she often hears about parents’ struggles to get in-home services covered for severely ill or disabled children. Some families have been encouraged to turn their children over to DCS to get them the care they need, she said.

Some of those children may wind up getting that care away from their families in hospitals or in DCS temporary homes.

A DCS spokesperson acknowledged that there have been a “couple” of children placed in DCS custody “because the parent(s) could no longer care for the child in the home due to their intense needs.” Most of the children are suspected victims of abuse or neglect, while some have been involved in the juvenile justice system, she said.

Lowen said specially trained caregivers work hard “in ensuring that these children receive the care — and love — they deserve.”

Tags Department of Children's Services, Memphis, Tennessee Lookout

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Report: One in Five Tennessee Children Live in Poverty

Post author By Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout
Post date May 17, 2023

Nearly one in five Tennessee children live in poverty, a measure of well-being that varies sharply by geography.

In rural northeast Lake County, for example, the number of children living below the poverty line is double the state average; meanwhile in wealthy Williamson County, fewer than 4 percent of children are being raised under such economic strains.

The data, released Tuesday by the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, paints an uneven portrait of Tennessee’s children in county-by-county snapshots that also measure rates of low birth-weight babies, educational outcomes, childcare costs, child abuse and family circumstances.

County poverty rates coincide with other stressors facing families with children. The ten counties with the highest rates of poverty for kids also are among those with the greatest rates of low birth-weight babies, child care cost burdens and food insecurity, according to the agency’s annual 2023 County Profiles in Child Well-Being, which measured 52 different metrics that impact the states’ children.

The high poverty rates straddle both rural and urban areas. Among the top 10 counties for child poverty are Shelby and Davidson, which include Nashville and Memphis, the state’s largest cities. Small-population counties of Haywood, Hardeman and Madison Counties in west Tennessee and Campbell in eastern Tennessee also have outsized numbers of poor children.

The report also revealed wide educational disparities.

A child living in the lowest performing county was half as likely to be proficient in TCAP reading than the state average, the report found. A child in Perry County was far more likely — by a factor of nearly 10 — to be absent from school than a child in Blount County.

The disparities also extended to rates of child abuse and neglect, a data point that could signal either higher incidents of harm — or differing levels of investigations or enforcement actions by state child welfare officials or local law enforcement.

Clay County had the highest rate of substantiated abuse or neglect at nearly 34 per 1,000 children. Moore County had the lowest at 0.8 per 1,000.

“These county profiles always serve as a reminder that the experience, opportunities, and access to positive outcomes can look vastly different for each child in Tennessee.” said Richard Kennedy, executive director of Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth.

The report is released annually by the commission, an independent state-funded entity responsible for providing objective analyses and serving as a watchdog for the Department of Children’s Services.

The commission earlier this year survived an effort backed by the administration of Gov. Bill Lee to dissolve it, after it released a critical report on the DCS’s work

Tags children, Memphis, poverty, Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth

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‘Composting’ Birds: Avian Flu Hits West Tennessee Farm, 267,000 Birds Destroyed

Post author By Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout
Post date January 30, 2023

Tyson chicken barns, like these in West Tennessee, house more than 624,000 chickens each and produce massive quantities of waste. (Photo: John Partipilo)

by Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout

The first sign of something awry was the road closure on the two-lane country road that goes right past Will Burton’s Weakley County farm, his fields, barns and the one-story house he shares with his fiancee and three kids.

White trucks — emblazoned with the seal of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture and “fire and burn” stickers — began rolling past around the same time the family began smelling a terrible, new odor. It was distinct from the smell of chicken waste that has been ever-present since a 16-barn industrial chicken operation, a raw meat supplier for Tyson Foods, moved in two years ago over Burton’s objections.

Within days, the smell had bloomed into an overpowering stench of rotting carcasses. The stench now permeates their home, and has cost everyone in the family a good night’s sleep — something Burton said his fiancee’s 11-year-old son with autism has struggled with the most.

My concern is that hundreds of thousands of dead chickens that are infected with the highly pathogenic bird flu are being left to compost on site, beside my house, beside water resources, stinking the whole neighborhood out. How is that safe or legal?

– Will Burton, Weakley County farmer

“He’s losing sleep,” Burton said. “Teachers are sending us notes home that he’s not able to concentrate. I’m getting headaches. It’s just like getting hit in the face — not with chickens, but with death. Just death and rotting carcasses.”

The chicken farm next door, Burton learned after frustrated attempts to get help from state environmental and agriculture officials, is the site of a massive outbreak of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) — a virus whose only remedy is destroying infected or exposed chickens.

On Friday, state officials said that more than 267,000 birds have been destroyed in barns this week, just a few hundred feet from Burton’s house. The carcasses will remain in the barns until a composting process is complete — something that can take up to a month, according to information provided Friday by a Department of Agriculture spokesperson.

The recent national outbreak of avian flu was first detected in Tennessee in a backyard flock in Obion County in September. Since then, cases have been detected in Tipton and Bledsoe County. While some outbreaks have occurred among backyard flocks, at least two have occurred on industrial farms that serve as contractors to Tyson Foods.

Scores of Tyson contract farms have proliferated in west Tennessee, often over the objection of local farmers and residents, to supply raw meat to Tyson Foods processing plants. All of Tennessee’s reported avian flu outbreaks have been in west Tennessee.

Poultry barns for a Tyson Foods industrial chicken farm in Weakley County. At least 267,000 chickens have been killed and will be left to “compost” for up to a month because of avian flu. (Photo: John Partipilo)

“Unfortunately, HPAI continues to spread to farms of all sizes,” Tennessee State Veterinarian Dr. Samantha Beaty said in a Jan. 20 news release about the outbreak next door to the Burtons. “There have been four previous detections in Weakley County affecting backyard flocks. It’s apparent this disease remains a threat to the poultry industry.”

State officials say the outbreak poses no harm to human health from infected birds.

But Burton has questions about the impact on his family. He said he hasn’t been able to get answers from state agriculture and environment officials.

As part of containment efforts, the state established a 12.4 mile zone around the barns, requiring all commercial and backyard poultry within the zone to be tested and monitored for the virus.

The process of killing chickens, then composting them inside the barns in the property adjacent to the Burton’s house was approved by the state’s chief veterinarian, the USDA and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, the agricultural department spokesperson said.

That process, laid out in painstaking detail in a 31-page protocol shared by the department, consists of adding a six to eight-foot mound of carcasses, litter and feed to a base of mulch on the barn floor, where it is then topped with a layer of sawdust-like materials. In about 28 days, the compost will be ready for removal, the protocol said.

None of the state interventions include mitigating odors, because no state agency in Tennessee regulates them, a source of irritation for Burton, who said he has contacted state environmental and agricultural officials, none of whom would offer any help.

No other environmental monitoring is ongoing at the site beyond the testing of wild birds by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources agency, the spokesperson said.

“Since composting mortalities is a common and accepted method in agriculture, no permit is needed in this case,” she said.

In “composting,” dead birds are piled in six- to eight-foot mounds with chicken feed, litter, mulch and a layer of sawdust, where it can remain for up to a month. State officials say it’s an approved method for disposing of diseased chickens.

“It’s an ag-related odor, they told me,” Burton said. Such odors are protected from nuisance complaints under Tennessee law.

The state’s Right to Farm law, designed to protect Tennessee farmers from nuisance claims by suburbanites or other newcomers moving into an agriculture community, has prevented local farmers from challenging Tyson contractors over odors or other potential environmental hazards before.

It’s been a sore point for communities in west Tennessee that have seen Tyson contractors buy up land and establish large-scale industrial chicken operations in close proximity to family farms, residential homes and neighborhoods.

Burton has emailed Tyson Foods as well. Tyson, which does not own the farm, relies on its contractor to build barns according to Tyson specifications, raise chicks supplied by Tyson, feed them grain supplied by Tyson, sell them at rates set by Tyson and abide by all Tyson rules.

Burton has not gotten a response, he said Friday. Tyson did not respond to the Lookout either.

“My concern is that hundreds of thousands of dead chickens that are infected with the highly pathogenic bird flu are being left to compost on site, beside my house, beside water resources, stinking the whole neighborhood out. How is that safe or legal?”

Tags avian flu, chicken farms, Memphis, Weakley County

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Refugee, Faith Groups Respond to Tennessee GOP Uproar Over Asylum Seekers

Post author By Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout
Post date December 28, 2022

The exterior of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights building. TIRRC is one of several local organizations helping asylum seekers and refugees to their homes with relatives ion the U.S.(Photo: John Partipilo)

by Anita Wadhwani, Tennessee Lookout

After state Republican leaders condemned a plan to bring asylum seekers to Tennessee, faith leaders and immigrant advocates pushed back on “misleading” and “fear mongering” rhetoric they said runs contrary to the values of the Volunteer State.

In a flurry of statements released last week, Gov. Bill Lee, GOP Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, along with GOP leaders in the state legislature demanded that the Biden administration reverse a plan – still in its preliminary stages – to coordinate transportation of asylum seekers with advocacy groups and churches in Nashville.

“This is irresponsible and a threat to the safety of Tennesseans,” Lee said in his statement. Blackburn suggested the federal government was “trafficking illegal migrants into our state.” And Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti cited the “terrible harms” of an unsecured border that include fentanyl deaths and “child sex traffickers.”

The fact is none of this is new. What is new, and an important first step, is a good faith effort to organize a coordinated response between governments and local process, to ensure that it is orderly.

– Lisa Sherman Luna, Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition

On Wednesday, immigrant advocates noted that the plan was an effort by the federal government to coordinate what has been a loose and ongoing process of migrants making their way to Nashville after being vetted and released by ICE officials, often for short stints before reuniting with family in other states.

“For decades, Tennesseans have done this work formally and informally,” said Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, citing a history of welcoming immigrants and refugees that stretch back to the 1960s when Cubans arrived and continues today with Afghan and Ukrainian refugees. “We’ve welcomed people and supported them as they rebuild their lives in this country.”

“The fact is none of this is new,” she said. “Welcoming and hospitality is woven into the fabric of who Tennesseans are…What is new, and an important first step, is a good faith effort to organize a coordinated response between governments and local process, to ensure that it is orderly.”

“While we’ve seen other governors and mayors who have responded to newcomers arriving in buses from border states, using their power and resources to make the process as smooth as possible, Gov. Lee’s response is really extreme and out of step with his constituents. Everyday Tennesseans don’t need or want a governor who creates a crisis by going on Fox News. We need leadership who is going to live up to our values, who will join the work of our communities and not miss an opportunity to help people get home to their families in time for Christmas.”

Several weeks ago, Sherman Luna and other groups got word that federal immigration officials were seeking an orderly way to transport asylum seekers from federal immigration processing centers – a process that currently requires immigrants to make their own way to their final destination.

The plan called for federal officials to pay for buses to transport those who wished to travel to Tennessee. Local nonprofits and churches quickly stepped up to plan for temporary beds, transportation vouchers for flights out of Tennessee, food, diapers and other necessities, Sherman Luna said.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said he is “exploring all options” to halt plans to coordinate coordinate transportation of asylum seekers with advocacy groups and churches in Nashville.

“When we put the call to action out, calling on people to help us get loved ones home just in time for Christmas we were overwhelmed with the support from volunteers, from churches and other partners who quickly stepped up to organize a robust and welcoming infrastructure,” she said.

The status of those plans remains unclear. Skrmetti said he was “exploring all options” in efforts to halt the plans.

The vast majority of the immigrants are asylum seekers who have followed the legal process of presenting themselves at the U.S. border, assessed and found to have a credible fear of persecution in their home countries, said Lisa Graybill, vice president of Law and Policy for the National Immigration Law Center, who joined a press call with reporters to respond to Republican’s claims.

A small minority of the immigrants would fall into a subset of asylum seekers who are making a second or subsequent attempt to come to the United States, she said. All of the potential immigrants have immigration court dates, are required to check in regularly with federal immigration officials and cleared the first hurdle in their asylum claims.

The Border Patrol also screens all immigrants against multiple public safety databases, and assess whether the individual poses a general threat to public safety before releasing any individuals, an ICE spokesperson said.

Tags immigration, Memphis, Tennessee General Assembly, Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, Tennessee Lookout